


True Love's Kiss

by vinnie2757



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Angst, Background Character Death, Body Horror, Developing Relationship, Dragons, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, F/F, F/M, Fairy Tale Curses, M/M, Multi, Other, Temporary Character Death, True Love, Violence, angst all day long tbh, debatable reincarnation, magic and mayhem, theres smooching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-05-19 13:31:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 126,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5969013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinnie2757/pseuds/vinnie2757
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘There was a story,’ Laura says, and Clint grits his fangs, snarling against the hands she’s got stroking over the jagged edge of the scales creeping up his neck, ‘about how a long time ago, a princess was captured and when the hero who went to rescue her failed, he was cursed to become his failure. I always thought it was a story, but I also thought dragons had been wiped out centuries ago.’</p><p>Or: Clint is cursed and Laura is a Princess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Once Upon a Time, There was a Jailbreak

**Author's Note:**

> hot damn its a fairy tale au. unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own.

It’s been a hot spring so far, no end-of-season snow and few harsh winds. Already, flowers are springing up out of the mud and the king’s wood smells less like rotting leaves and animal shit and more like lavender and animal shit. It’s nicer on his nose, either which way, and he finds himself plucking the nicest-smelling flowers for no more reason than to carry them around with him, taking them back home to have them near the bed that he doesn’t sleep in.

When he once mentioned the flowers, off-hand, to Matthew, the boy had managed to get him a vase that was really little more than an over-sized, misshapen tankard.

‘Miss Page made it,’ he’d said, and he’d tilted his head in the direction of the tankard as though he could see it, a fond smile playing on his mouth.

‘It’s hideous,’ Clint had replied.

‘She tries her best,’ Matthew had told him, and his eyes, brown and big and without any focus at all, had turned to Clint then, looking through him without seeing a thing. ‘It’s all we can ask of our fellow man.’

So Clint had taken the tankard-vase, because Matthew hadn’t had any use for it, as sweet a gesture as the attempt at pottery was, and now it sat on the floor next to Clint’s rarely-used bed, full of water from the stream and handfuls of mismatched flowers, pinks and yellows and purples and every colour but blue. He never had blue. Sometimes, he’d look at it as he skinned rabbits and plucked birds, and he’d smile to himself, because flowers were nice to look at and to smell and the little sparks of colour made a change from the dark stone of the walls.

He’s already plucked a handful of yellow flowers (he’d asked a girl in the Lower Town about flowers many years ago, and had shown her the flowers he’d collected and pressed between pages of an old book left in the woods that he’d stolen just to press the flowers, and she’d told him that the yellow ones were primroses and celandines, and he’d learnt the names of other ones too, and he’d had to flee quickly when her father called her his little flower princess) and he’d tucked them safely into a strap of his jerkin, freeing his hands to notch arrows and then pull them free of his hunt’s neck.

Dinner tonight and tomorrow will be the brace of rabbits he’d caught, and it’s only as he’s easing the arrow free of the second of the brace’s necks that he spots it. Breath slowing to nothing, head tilting, eyes narrowing, he watches for a second, as though it can do anything.

‘Hello,’ he breathes, carefully wiping the arrowhead off with the palm of his hand, and tucking it back into the quiver on his belt. ‘What are you?’

He creeps closer, stays low on his haunches and brushes mulch and leaves out of the way, traces the shape of a horseshoe with his fingertips.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asks the tracks, and follows them with his gaze, deeper into the woods.

These are the king’s lands, there shouldn’t be any shoed horses here, not today; the king’s hunt isn’t due for another two days, and they’re fresh tracks, a half-hour old at best. That’s bothersome, so very, very bothersome, and Clint swallows.

It’s bothersome that he hadn’t heard the horse come thundering through; he’s been in this part of the woods for some three hours now, hunting these fucking rabbits, and he hadn’t heard a single thing, not a hoof upon a twig or a bray or anything of the sort. He’d had no idea that a horse was in the woods at all. And that was bad news. It meant he was getting lazy, and his laziness in keeping his guard up, in staying aware of his surroundings – that kind of carelessness would get people killed, and he’s been doing so well to not get people killed the last few decades. He can’t afford to be careless like this. If he’s missed a horse galloping around, what else has he missed?

Watching the trees now, he rushes back to his previous position, throwing his bow over his shoulders and shoving the rabbits into a blood-cured leather bag that has been specially designated as _dinner_ , and gets to his feet. Should he follow the tracks? See if it’s anything he needs to worry about? Or should he flee, like he always does?

Fleeing is safe. There is nothing un-heroic about running from a danger you know you cannot face. Clint is aware of his shortcomings more than most men, he thinks, because most men’s shortcomings do not have the power to level entire kingdoms with blanket rage. Knowing how to pick your battles – and by pick, Clint must be understood to never fight a battle when he can run from it – is not a shortcoming.

It’s not.

But –

Clint knows these woods, and he knows them well. He could track the horse, see what it is, what he’s missed. If it’s something that _needs_ his attention. It could just be a horse that’s gotten free of the stables and made its way down here. In which case, he could direct it back to the castle and not have half of the castle’s staff combing the woods looking for it in the event it’s a royal horse. It takes a little over five days to walk in a straight line from one end of the forest to the other, he knows, he’s done that before, when things were _quiet_ , so that’s all he needs, the fucking Queen’s Guard blundering about the place stepping on all the nice flowers in growing panic as they get lost and can’t find the horse or their way.

The fact he _cares_ about the flowers tells him so much about what the last three hundred years of near-constant isolation has done to him.

Shaking himself, because he’s being silly now, he picks up the trail and follows it through the woods for some ten minutes, one ear pricked for the sound of the horse, the other for the sound of anybody else who might be in the woods, but everything is silent. As silent as the woods ever are, anyway. Animals tend to avoid him, able to smell him coming a mile off, but they’re less skittish than they were, able to stand him for brief periods, able to bear his stench.

It’s not as though he _intends_ to stink, it’s just the dragon in him won’t let him smell like a man. He stinks of the ice about his heart, and there’s not a whole lot he can do about it.

But through the silence of the woods, the silence of twittering birds and breezes brushing the leaves aside to make way for rabbits and deer, he hears the whispering. He always hears whispering these days, like there’s a constant gossip behind him, following him around and trying to make him paranoid that they’re speaking about him. Clint is sure that it’s _him_ , because he hears that voice in his dreams, when he has them, but why now, of all times, why after all these years of silence? Why now would _he_ come back to haunt him?

Hadn’t he done enough damage?

Being downwind of the horse, Clint catches a whiff of its scent before the horse smells him, and he catches a glimpse of it moments later. It’s a pretty horse, a palomino – a Thoroughbred, by the looks of it – with a white stripe down its nose and socks on all four legs, but as soon as it catches a glimpse of him, it rushes off into the trees, braying and skittering on its legs. Not that he blames it in the least; he’d have run, too.

‘Wait!’ he calls, but doesn’t give chase. ‘Come back.’

But the horse is gone, and he sighs, ignores the newest tracks to follow the older ones, wondering if maybe it had had a rider, if it had thrown them. It had had a side-saddle; a female rider, then. He’d wager it was a Lady, and he holds out hope that perhaps the horse had simply broken free of the castle stable and had gone for a jolly old run, only to panic at the stink of him.

It’s a vain hope, but a hope nonetheless.

As he follows the tracks, so he finds it harder and harder to breathe. His vision is tunnelling, in a way he’s too familiar with. It’s tunnelling and sharpening, and his heaving chest draws more air than his lungs can hold, burning with the excess. He can see every colour of every leaf, every minute shift in hue and hear every individual rustling brush of leaf against leaf. It’s deafening, the roar in his head, but even more deafening still is the ragged gasp of feminine breath.

He pauses, weighs his jaws, weighs the familiar ache of fangs too big for his mouth, the blistering stretch of his mouth as a snarl forms, low in his throat and lips curled back. He pauses, inhales deep and through the lavender and animal shit stink of the woods, he smells _her_ , honey and vanilla and the iron of the blood in her neck. He swallows thickly, downs the bile rising at the sensation. It’s familiar to him, should be after three hundred years, and it’s a sensation he’s spent hours rambling to himself under the guise of confession about. He hasn’t felt it for decades, but he’s not forgotten it, the feeling of losing himself.

He’s not forgotten.

The scales are creeping up his neck from his spine, jagged and purple and blistering against his skin, and the claws are ripping through his nails, his body is burning and freezing all at once. His organs ache, his bones crumbling and reforming, shaped into something else, something _worse_. Something _not man_. He tries to reign it in, tries to control it, but he can’t. He _can’t_ control it, not this time.

He can’t see her, but he can _feel_ her, and he knows what she is, knows what’s waiting for him not twenty feet away, past the next thicket.

She’s – she’s –

Forcing himself to just _breathe_ , he stands just out of her field of view, watches her for a moment, a mess of embroidered red silk and dark, earth-brown hair, braided intricately at the nape of her neck around white lace bands, loose strands falling free and curling against her brow, the ends still tangled into the braids and for all the scruffiness of it, it’s still somehow so elegant. She’s small and thin, her face young, her skin silk-soft and summer-gold. There’s a regal arch to her neck, a straightness to her back even as she doubles down over her ankle.

She’s beautiful, she’s _so_ beautiful.

‘Hello?’ he calls, and the growl is there already.

He clears his throat, calls hello again, and he sounds almost human this time.

This is something he knows, he tells himself, this is something he has spent centuries learning to control, he can handle this, he _can_. He can control the claws digging into his palms, the press of his wings against his back. He can pull his skin back across the purplish bone and dim his eyes and breathe through his nose like a normal human being. He can, he can, he _can_. He’s done it before. He can do it again.

It’s been decades without an incident, he doesn’t need one on the King’s doorstep.

‘Hello?’ she calls back.

There’s something in her voice, something that makes his soul, or at least what’s left of it, quiet down and calm even as his blood boils that bit harder. His vision completely blacks before returning, sharper still and it’s painful. Every sense is too strong now, his bones burning and his organs contorted to fit. This is not a sensation he’s familiar with; war and peace in the same heartbeat, the utter contentment of _peace_ sharing the same space as blind panic, he’s not used to that. He tries to focus on the calm of her voice, the gentle sweetness of it, as gentle as the smell of her, the sight of her. Every inch of her is every inch of what he is not, and he latches on as best he can.

Laughter behind his ears and he reels back, stays the other side of the clearing. For all he pretends like he can latch onto her gentle peace, the fact remains that he’s going to kill her like he killed the others. He has no choice; it might happen in seconds, might happen in minutes, in hours, but he’ll lose control, and losing control will have him killing her, because that’s _what_ _he does_.

‘Hello?’ she calls again, and she twists to peer about herself, trying to spot him. ‘Who’s there? Show yourself!’

Keeping the claws ripping his nails from his fingers out of sight, he approaches, feels the burn of scales in his neck. Perhaps he’ll have time to explain.

‘Are you hurt?’ he asks, ‘was that your horse? The palomino?’

She nods, a jerk of her chin and she hikes her skirt up over her knees to better examine the blackening skin of her ankle. Her legs are handsome, and Clint’s mouth is too dry, tongue stuck to the roof.

‘He threw me,’ she explains, in that prim sort of tone of one not used to having to explain herself. But then she softens, and her expression turns to one of confusion. ‘He hasn’t thrown me without reason since I started training him. He’s not easily frightened; this wasn’t like him at all.’

Clint understands.

‘Were you with anybody?’ he asks, ‘were you riding alone?’

He should go. He should absolutely go and lock himself inside Peggy’s cottage, and stare at the wall and count to ten and pretend like he’s not seeing only the pulse in her neck and the blood under her skin, like he’s not seeing the blue of it and feeling the rage burn away at what’s left of _him_.

‘I had my guards,’ the woman says, ‘they must be going frantic; these woods are so hard to navigate in a panic, and I’ve been sat here almost twenty minutes.’

She prods at her ankle for a few moments more, and then shoves her skirt back down, twists to clutch at the tree she’s propped herself up against, using it to lever herself upright. She gets halfway before she has to put weight on her bad ankle, and she crumples, snarling through her teeth as she clutches it.

‘May I?’ Clint asks, even as he tries to take a step backwards, only for his feet to propel him forwards until he’s kneeling inches from her feet, hands outstretched to take her injured ankle.

She looks at him, surprised, but nods, and Clint feels as surprised as she looks to find his hands almost – _almost_ – human-looking. Her foot is dainty, her shoes completely inappropriate for the day’s plans, and it sits perfectly in the seam of his thighs when he eases her shoe off and sets it in his lap to look at her ankle better.

His skin is brown compared to that of her ankle and foot, but anything would seem brown next to the bruising, swelling skin there. It takes him a lot – a _lot_ – of control to actually touch her skin, to press enough to feel the bone and he doesn’t need to look to hear her bones meeting, her muscles popping under the pressure of his fingertips. She hisses and her foot jerks against his touch, but she doesn’t draw away; she must be used to being examined for injuries.

‘You’re alright,’ he says, ‘you’ve sprained it, is all. No broken bones.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘I’ve sprained my ankle enough times to tell,’ he grins, because he’s tripped over roots far more times than a man his age should have.

They talk a little more as Clint massages her ankle, keeps it elevated and warm. She tells him that his hands are warm, and he smiles, hopes it doesn’t look as sad as he thinks it feels. He’d been warm-bodied Before, so _she’d_ said, always keen to press close when they were hiding in the stables, because he was better than a bedpan or a woollen dress and fur-lined cloak, and now that there is a – a – now that there is fire in his veins, he’s a lot warmer still.

‘Your guards,’ he says eventually, looking up from her to glance about them. He’s heard nothing, and sees nothing, and can smell nothing. As far as he can tell, they’re utterly alone. ‘Where were they last?’

‘We were a few miles from the castle,’ she says, ‘they could be anywhere now.’

Clint takes a deep breath, and the honey and vanilla of her skin curls around him for a second before it’s caught by the breeze and swept away again.

‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Do you want me to – I know these woods well, I could find them. Lead them back here to you.’

 ‘It’s quite alright, sir,’ she smiles, ‘they’ll be here shortly. I don’t doubt their abilities when it comes to finding me. This is what they’re paid to do, you understand. They’re the Queen’s Guard.’

The Queen’s Guard? The only person allowed to use the Queen’s Guard is the  –

Something turns to ice in Clint’s belly, and it spread to his fingertips, which go still against her ankle. She frowns at him.

‘Is something the matter?’ she asks, and he’d almost forgotten that he was fighting himself for control, because being around her was _easy_. It was almost like – almost as if –

She was so like –

He drops her ankle and shoves himself away, gets as far away from her as he can, because his wings are pushing his skin and his teeth are aching. He chokes on his tongue, tries to get every word out at once, and only manages to make inhuman noises. His blood is burning, and he can smell the brimstone on his breath, taste the ash of charred bone on his tongue.

‘Is something the matter?’ she repeats, and shifts onto her knees to lean closer.

As she does, her eyes pass into a shaft of sunlight, and it catches, turns earth-brown into molten gold.

His heart feels like it’s dropped out of his stomach and lurched into his throat and burst into flame all at once, and he can’t breathe, can’t see straight.

‘ _Get away from me,_ ’ he chokes out, and he doesn’t need to see straight to see the scowl cross her face, the indignation.

‘Excuse me?’ she scoffs, and straightens her back. It doesn’t make her any taller, not really, but the posturing is sweet. ‘Do you know who I am? You do not get to tell me what to do.’

Clint snarls, and the growl that accompanies it is too low to be human.

‘For the love of the heavens! Get _away_ from me.’

Her eyes grow wide. If he hoarded anything, Clint thinks he might hoard the sunlight he could harvest from her gaze, and she shrinks, tries to back away from him, but trying to put weight on her black ankle makes her cry out, collapse into a heap. She manages to scramble a short distance, but she backs into a tree and she pins herself there, staring at him.

There’s no point in running, he thinks blandly, claws digging into the dirt as he stares at the ground and tries to gather himself, tries to compress the cu – the cur – tries to bring himself back under control. There’s no point in running, because he can smell her, and he knows where she is, and even if she could run, she wouldn’t be able to outrun him. There’s no point in making it a chase.

It can only end one way.

He thumps the dirt with both fists, snarls at himself. He’s done this a thousand times over the centuries. He can get himself back under control. He can do it.

He can, he can, he can.

 _He can_.

‘Princess! Princess, holler back!’

Like being punched in the gut, Clint snaps back to himself, scattered mind reassembling into something familiar, if a bit dazed. He stares at his hands for a second, two, three, and takes a deep breath, chokes himself with it, forces himself to focus the hop-skip echo of a dozen feet against bark and leaf and the forest floor, closing in on their position.

‘Princess!’

Louder now, and the Princess pins him with her gaze when he tries to retreat. He hasn’t felt helpless for centuries, but there’s _something_ in her eyes, something familiar, something he knows and inexplicably _trusts_ in a way he hasn’t trusted anything since he was cur – cur – made like this.

‘Bucky!’ she calls back. ‘I’m fine! I’ve sprained my ankle.’

‘Stay where you are, we can hear you loud and clear!’

She licks her lips, and Clint swallows, shakes his head. Her expression is apologetic, but she opens her mouth anyway.

‘I’m not alone!’

Clint would be able to feel the hostility coming off the guards even if he wasn’t able to _smell_ it. But it’s hard to be scared when he knows he can snap them all in half with a single bite.

‘Who’s there?’ A different voice, deeper and bolder; a born leader.

‘My name’s Barton!’ Clint calls out, because it’s polite to introduce yourself.

A hush; Barton is a name as cursed as the man himself.

‘Stay where you are,’ the second voice calls. ‘We’re almost there.’

Clint can tell, can smell seven different raw masculinities, hear their footfall as they slow from speedy, harried searching to a cautious, guarded approach on steady, flat feet. He can’t see them yet, but it doesn’t take long for them to come into view. There’s nothing uniform about them, all of their uniforms different, pulled apart and stitched back together. If he didn’t know better, he’d say they looked deliberately scruffy, deliberately mismatched and unkempt. But these are the Queen’s Guard, the best of the best, the pride of the Kingdom of York, sworn into the service of the Queen and, following her passing a decade ago, sworn into the service of the Princess and only the Princess. This is, of course, assuming she is telling the truth of them, and this is not just some elaborate ruse. Clint can find no real reason for her to lie to him, save to provoke him, but how would she know who he was and where to find him to provoke him in the first place? Why risk herself in a thousand ways to see what happened when he was close enough to hear her heartbeat, pounding in her neck like an iron drum?

The scruffiest of them makes straight for her, his black pelisse missing all of its buttons and half of its silver trim, his hair too long to be fashionable and swept back from his brow, but somehow still looking dashing and debonair, and he throws himself onto his knees beside her. He’s handsome, baby-faced with a few days of beard growth on his jaw, and there’s a look of such intensity on his face as he draws her ankle into his lap, filthy hands gentle.

‘You did a real swell job,’ he says – the first voice. Bucky, she’d said. He’s gentle, placating, deliberately soft to bank her pain. ‘Did you lift it?’

The princess nods, waggles her toes.

‘I tried to compress it, too, but I couldn’t remember how, and just squeezing it hurt.’

Movement from the corner of his eye and Clint turns to find the Captain shifting. Clint has heard stories of the Captain of the Queen’s Guard, of how he was one of the Princess’ childhood friends saved by the Fair Folk at the Princess’ desperate behest.

He’s the tidiest of the seven, his pelisse a fair, clean blue with red cuffs and collar and white trim, albeit a poor showing of one. It’s scuffed about the edges, and he has buttons missing the same as the others; these must be their field jackets, Clint thinks, the ones they wear in the event things like this happen. No point in ruining half a dozen jackets when you can ruin the same one several times over. Wearing his clothes that way has served Clint for decades.

Bucky is gesturing, and the tallest of them – towering over the others, with shoulders like a bull and the arms to match, a well-worn hat atop his head and an impressive moustache that stretches almost cheek-to-cheek – approaches, ducks his head under the princess’s arm, and lifts her the way a husband lifts his bride, with the ease of a father lifting his child. Bucky follows him upright, and cradles her heel in his hands.

‘Where’s your horse?’ the Captain asks, and she shakes her head.

‘He ran,’ she says, ‘bucked me and took off. I think – I think Barton can track him. That’s how you found me, correct? You followed my horse.’

All eyes turn to Clint, and he swallows, shivers.

‘I – yes. That’s – that’s how I found you. Yes. Um. I can track the horse.’

The Captain’s eyes narrow and he strides as he approaches, chin up, shoulders back, a soldier through and through, aware of how much space he takes up and aware of how intimidating and cold his eyes are. They’re blue too, blue in a different way to Clint’s, but he’s close enough that Clint can smell _Peggy_ on him, smell the touch of her magic, curling under his skin and filling him out. He is not like this by birth. Magic has made him this way, and his gaze darts to the Princess, still held four feet off the ground by the man-mountain, her ankle still in Bucky’s hands, though now it’s being wrapped in a strip of cloth he’s procured from somewhere – by the looks of her dress, it’s come from her hemline. The Guardsman is holding her ankle steady while Bucky yanks the cloth tight, shushing the Princess under his breath when she whines about the pain.

But the Captain is close enough that all Clint can smell is the ink and tea smell of Peggy, the bitter sweetness of her magic, and he’s missed her, after a fashion. She’d been there so much before the – well, before. She’d done everything she could, but Clint had not been her charge, had not been under her protection, and her hands had been as tied as the rest. He was lost before he’d begun, and it had taken three hundred years to appreciate all she’d done to give him the odds he’d had. And so he’d missed her, and so his senses are swamped by the proximity of the captain.

‘How is it that you, a stranger in these woods, can track a horse?’ the Captain asks.

Clint watches his face, becomes all too aware of the brace of rabbits hanging against his hip in an old, blood-cured leather bag, the bow on his back and the quiver attached to his hip. It’s illegal to hunt, but how else can he explain it?

‘It’s what I do,’ Clint says. ‘I track things.’

‘You’re a tracker,’ the Captain says, and the disbelief in his eyes feels like a fist in his gut.

‘Yes.’

The silence lingers on, and Clint glances over at the Princess again, who is complaining to Bucky about how tight he’s knotting the makeshift bandage. The Captain follows his gaze, and hums.

‘Dugan, Falsworth, take the Princess back to the horses and take her back to the castle. I want Sam to look at her ankle. And – I want Helen to take a look at her, too. Make sure it’s _just_ a sprained ankle.’

‘Steve, I’m _fine_ ,’ the Princess protests. ‘Barton took a look, and he’s sprained his ankle plenty!’

At the same time, Clint bursts out with, ‘just _what_ are you accusing me of?’

Steve – yes, then, it is Captain Rogers, the childhood friend made tall and strong and picture-perfect protection by Peggy’s hand and not some other poor, sickness-ridden boy with wheat-blond hair and eyes the colour of the sky – turns fully to look at the Princess, and folds his arms.

‘Laura,’ he says, an order, not a request. ‘Do not argue with me.’

 _Laura_. Clint feels his heart shiver, his stomach tighten and his lungs dissolve into ash, and he knows that’s stupid. Laura is a common name amongst York’s royalty. It’s a common name and has been for centuries. In the time he’s been living in the woods, there’s been two Queen Lauras alone.

Even so, the name is a brand upon his heart, and he feels it like a knife between his ribs. Behind his ears, he thinks he can hear _him_ laughing, that spiteful, childish giggle that he’d had to listen to every night he managed to sleep.

Laura doesn’t reply, doesn’t argue, doesn’t bicker. The captain turns back to Clint, who can feel blood dripping down his palms from how tight he’s gripping, can feel it welling on his tongue, trapped between his teeth.

Falsworth steps away from the others, tall and blueblood-handsome, sharp-eyed and tight-fisted, and Clint watches him glance between Captain Rogers, Clint, and Laura before settling his gaze on the last, falling in at the man-mountain’s – Dugan’s – side. As they pass on their way back the way they’d come, Clint catches the insignia for a Major on his sleeve, and wonders how a Major ends up following a Captain’s orders.

(He’s not the first to wonder, and he won’t be the last.)

Laura twists in Dugan’s arms to look over his shoulder, molten gold eyes locked on Clint with an expression he can’t name, but recognises in his bones. He almost takes half a step towards her, but Captain Rogers is in the way, and his eyes narrow when he realises that Clint was about to follow.

‘I think you should return to the castle with us,’ he says, in the kind of voice that makes it an order.

‘You do, do you?’ Clint sniffs, and licks at his fangs, hopes they’re staying in his mouth and not in someone’s arm.

‘I do,’ Captain Rogers replies. ‘I think the King will be very interested to hear about a _tracker_ in his woods without anyone knowing about it.’

‘Speaking of tracking, we need to find Duke,’ Bucky offers, and Clint half-opens his mouth, but Captain Rogers is already there.

‘Jacques, take Gabe with you and find the horse, get it back to the castle by nightfall.’

Two of the remaining three – one short and the other tall, one clearly older than the rest and the other dark-skinned, both of them as scruffy as the others – nod and disappear into the trees. Clint waits for their smell to disappear before he looks at Captain Rogers again.

‘I do this for a living, you know,’ he says, ‘tracking things.’

It’s not entirely a lie. Sometimes he hunts for the Lower Town’s needy, brings them meat for a warm meal in exchange for shirts and boots and whetstones. They say nothing about how he obtained said meat, and he thanks them for that. Their silence is all that’s keeping the castle standing. He cannot be killed; he’s tried a thousand times.

‘And you just happen to be tracking things in the woods when the Princess gets bucked from her horse?’ Bucky asks, and his eyes narrow just enough.

There’s something colder in his gaze than in Captain Rogers’, and Clint watches him back, as levelly as he can.

‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I was tracking rabbits when I saw the horse’s – Duke, was it? – when I saw its tracks. It’s not often you see a horse with shoes in these parts.’

It’s the wrong thing to say. It could not have been any more wrong had Clint just opened his mouth and said, “I’m a hunter, I have two rabbits I shot with a bow and arrow in this bag here, look I’ll take them out.”

He watches Captain Rogers straighten his shoulders, gaining an extra inch in height, watches Bucky and the last of the Queen’s Guard come to stand at his side. Bucky is impressive, but there is something unsettling about the silent movement of the other man, shorter and older than his Captain and what Clint will put money on being the Captain’s right hand man.

Probably his right hand too, they’re standing far too close to be just looking to intimidate.

‘And you’re here often, are you?’ the last man asks, ‘to see horses’ tracks?’

‘Most days,’ Clint nods. ‘Children go missing in these woods a lot. It’s a five-day walk from one end to the other, and there are villages all around. It’s east to get lost.’

It’s still not entirely a lie. It’s not really the truth either; if children go missing in the woods, it’s because they were supposed to, and finding them is entirely an accident. He does not get involved in the townsfolk’s lives, as much as he is able to, anyway. There’s less chance of an _accident_ that way.

‘Buck,’ Captain Rogers says, and before Clint really knows what’s happening, still reeling from the effect Laura had had on him, the buzzing in his head and in his heart making it impossible to think, Bucky’s knee is in the small of his back and steel-tight hands are clamped about his wrists, yanking his arms back.

Pinned face-first into the dirt, there’s – well, there’s a lot Clint could do, because hands, no matter how vice-tight, are not enough to hold him, not really – but without ripping Bucky’s arms away from the rest of him, there’s not much he can do. He’s hauled to his feet and frog-marched back towards the horses. It’d be easy to break free. He _should_ break free. He needs to. If he can make it back to Peggy’s cottage, he’ll be safe, because no one can find the cottage without knowing it’s there, and given that it’s still standing, nobody knows.

‘We’ll have to take this before the King,’ Captain Rogers is saying when Clint next tunes in to listen, too focused on breathing and not letting the beat of his heart get too fast. ‘It’s not my idea of a fun afternoon, but it’s not like I have a choice.’

Bucky and the other man – Jim, Clint has learnt – hum and nod and make vague, agreeable noises.

Clint tunes out again, watches his feet as they go one in front of the other, one after another until the trees part and Castle Harcourt looms picturesque and golden against the sky. Clint hasn’t been close enough to the castle to see it through the trees for some time now, and he’d forgotten exactly how big it was, how bright and cheerful it seemed with its light walls and blue spires. He’d forgotten that they were blue, and he feels cold in ways he hasn’t felt cold in years.

‘Come on,’ Captain Rogers says, and Bucky dismounts, pushes Clint forward with a foot, and holds him in place while Rogers goes to talk to the gate-guards, asking questions and giving orders as though he has the right.

The Captain of the Queen’s Guard is a prestigious position to have, Clint reasons. It was a dream for him, many years ago, to become Captain. In another lifetime, he might have achieved it. And had he, he would be long dead and buried in contentment.

Instead, he has this, a thousand eyes on him, in chains at the Queen’s Guard’s hand, being led like a common criminal through to an ante-chamber to _wait_.

‘How long,’ Bucky says to Jim as they stand by the door, watching Clint sitting quietly in a chair and doing _nothing_ , ‘do you think before Laura finds out that Steve’s arrested him and comes to kick up a fuss?’

‘An hour at the least,’ Jim replies. ‘She’s got to get past Sam and Helen first. And that’s not counting what Natasha’ll do to stop her rushing around on a sprained ankle. Hey, Barton, it _is_ just a sprained ankle, isn’t it? Nothing else?’

‘Nothing else.’

They fall silent, arms folded, staring at him. Clint stares at his knees, and catalogues the fray beginning to form in the left. If he makes it out of here – doubtful – any time today – impossible – he’ll have to head to the Church in Lower Town to ask Matthew to get him some new trousers, these are getting too worn on the knees. It’s unlikely he’ll be able to get to the Lower Town without a merry band of primped and polished and over-zealous guards following him. But he can give them the slip, and they’ll never find him again.

He just has to get out of here first, and judging by the look on Captain Rogers’ face when he enters the room some thirty minutes later, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

* * *

The ride back to the castle is tense, awkward, and it’s so unlike Dugan to ride in silence that she’s close to tears by the time they’ve passed through the gates. Monty’s too delicate in lifting her down from Dugan’s horse, his hands too wide-spread and too light against her hips, and he doesn’t let go until Dugan’s there to pick her up and take her through to the infirmary, where Sam seems to be prepared for them, space cleared for Dugan to set the Princess and lift her ankle.

‘Thank you,’ Sam says, and looks at the two Guardsmen, hovering like birds behind him. ‘You can go now.’

They look at Laura, who nods, and they back out of the room – actually back out of it! – before shutting the doors.

‘What did you do?’ Sam asks, ‘I’ve not seen them like that in months.’

‘There was a man,’ Laura says, and obligingly hikes her skirts so that Sam’s not tripping over them as he lifts her ankle onto a small end table to get a better look at it. ‘In the woods. Duke bucked me and ran off and I was sat there for a long time, and then this – this man came and he – he was _nice_ , Sam, he looked at my ankle, and he offered to find Steve and the boys to come and get me themselves, because he’s a tracker; it was how he found me. He found Duke’s tracks, and followed them to me.’

Sam, bent over her ankle, glances up at her from under his lashes, lifts his chin to study her properly.

‘Mm,’ he says, and his gaze goes back to the black-and-purple skin of her ankle. He prods at a particularly black spot of bruising. ‘Does this hurt?’

‘Yes!’ she yelps, and kicks with her good foot, but misses him by some feet.

Sam hums some more, and prods some more, asking which area hurts more than the next or last. At the end of it, as he crosses the room to get a strip of muslin and a jar of something pungent and greasy, he says, ‘it’s just a sprained ankle, you’ve had a hundred.’

He goes about rubbing the oil into her bruised, swollen ankle before strapping it up, shushing her protests about it being too tight, telling her that he knows what he’s doing, this is his _job_.

‘Send Natasha down to me tonight,’ he says, as he helps her to her feet, taking her weight for her before slowly easing her onto her heels, ‘and I’ll give her that oil. Don’t wear the compress overnight, but keep it elevated, and for the love of the heavens, don’t go riding your horse again until the bruising has completely gone.’

‘I _have_ sprained my ankle before,’ she says, and her eyes narrow. ‘Sprained, you said. You said it was a sprained ankle. Put it in writing for me.’

‘What?’ Sam asks, and shakes his head. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Laura.’

‘I’m not being ridiculous; I’m going to shove it up Steve’s nose.’

Sam laughs, clearly thinking she’s telling the funniest joke he’s heard all day (and given the injuries he usually deals with on a day-to-day basis, she has no doubt that she’s the highlight of it all), and goes to fetch her a cane.

‘Walk with this,’ he says, ‘don’t put weight on your ankle. Laura, promise me that you’ll behave and not go rushing off into trouble again.’

‘When do I ever?’ she beams, innocent and sweet and so without guile that Sam snorts.

‘You spend too much time with Natasha,’ he tells her, but passes the cane over and shows her out.

Monty and Dugan are waiting for her, standing to attention and staring down the corridor with such intensity she wonders how it’s personally offended them both. Perhaps the rug is particularly slippery today, and she asks as such.

They both hum.

‘We’re to take you to Helen,’ Monty says, and looks at the cane in her hand. ‘That’s too long for you.’

‘It’s just fine,’ Laura sniffs. ‘I don’t wish to see Helen today.’

‘ _Princess_.’

She lifts her chin. ‘ _Monty._ ’

Dugan pipes up with, ‘Laura, just go see her, or Steve’ll be outside your door in the middle of the night, wailing like a banshee about how you weren’t doing as he said. You know how he gets; remember when you wouldn’t go see Sam over the last sprained ankle?’

‘Of course I remember. I had to sit through three different lectures about taking proper care of myself.’

‘We all worry about you,’ he adds, gentle, doubling over to look her in the eye, and he looks so earnest she can’t bring herself to complain about how patronising ducking down is.

Even if there is a foot-and-a-half between them.

‘Are you going to wail if I refuse?’ she asks, and Monty hums while Dugan nods.

‘Most likely,’ Monty says. ‘If we don’t, the Captain will wail at us for letting you go without being checked over.’

Groaning, Laura concedes defeat and allows them to lead her down the corridor to Helen’s room, where they are promptly shut out.

Helen is nice, when she chooses to be, which is most of the time. She teases and makes jokes and is so eager to learn more about _bodies_ that Laura always lets her poke and prod and make notes more than she thinks she would for anyone else. There’s nothing mean in any observation Helen makes about Laura’s body, but there’s a mean look on her face when Laura hobbles over the threshold into the warm, fresh air of her room.

‘Steve came by,’ she says, frowning, and tells Laura to sit. ‘Told me about this man you met in the woods.’

‘He was nice,’ Laura says, though she’s beginning to feel like she could say it to a wall and be listened to more. ‘Offered to find the boys so I could go home. He told me my ankle was sprained when he had a look at it.’

‘Did he take a look at anything else?’ Helen asks, and Laura pauses.

There’s the same scowl in her voice that she heard on Steve’s, and she stares at the doctor for a moment.

‘What are you implying?’ she asks, in her best Royal voice. ‘I’m not a child any more, Helen, you took great delight in telling me that six years ago. So be honest with me; what did Steve say?’

‘He’s worried that this man – ‘

‘Barton,’ Laura interrupts. ‘His name is Barton, and I _know_ what that means, I know what a _bad_ thing it is that he’s introducing himself with that name. I know. But he’s not _bad_. I know people, Helen, and he’s not a bad person.’

She knows curses when she sees them too, had spent many hours sat at Peggy’s skirts watching her weave magic. She understands curses. You cannot learn the good without the bad, Peggy had told her, and that was the only reason she was showing her curses at all. To know what bad magic looked like so she could always recognise the good.

There was a curse on Barton’s shoulders, something old and well-worn, something he’d learnt to control. She wasn’t stupid. But being cursed did not make him bad. There was a priest in the Lower Town, she hears, that had been blinded by a curse, and how could a man who devoted his life afterwards to God be bad?

‘Steve is worried that something may have happened between you and your – _saviour_ – before they arrived.’

‘Steve is worried for no reason,’ Laura snipes. She’s not mad at Helen, not really. She’s as tied to the routine as Steve is. They have to check, because if they don’t and something happens, it’s their necks in the guillotine.

‘No reason.’

‘None at all. Barton was nothing less than the picture of gentility. He checked over my ankle after asking permission to touch me, and he offered to find the boys as soon as he was sure I was fine. He would have gone and looked for them too, had they not come lumbering in like a pack of wild boar.’

Helen searches her face, and Laura lets her look, lets her see the truth there.

‘Nothing happened?’ Helen asks, one last time.

‘Nothing happened,’ Laura echoes, and Helen chews her lip.

‘I’m going to trust you,’ she says, ‘but while you’re here, let me take a look at you anyway.’

Laura huffs out a laugh, but obligingly gets up to let Helen help her out of her dress.

* * *

It’s some hours later, after a quiet, uncomfortable dinner with her father – the King is always uncomfortable around Laura when she’s injured herself, because he’d sworn to her mother to never scold her for her behaviour if it was the same thing he did at her age, and he himself had gone riding in the woods as a young man and come off his horse multiple times. But beyond pleasantries, he has little to say to her, and so they sit in uncomfortable silences broken by paltry attempts at conversation that hang in the air before being burnt up by the candles between them – and brother, that Laura finds out what happened to Barton.

‘Captain Rogers informed me earlier,’ the King starts, and Laura stiffens, spoon of baked apple halfway to her mouth, ‘that there was a man in the woods when you were bucked from Duke.’

‘There was,’ Laura nods, and shoves the apple in her mouth to prevent anything further coming out.

‘Laura,’ her father starts in what she supposes he thinks is a gentle, placating tone. It grates, and she grits her teeth. ‘He – when he was arrested, Captain Rogers found a brace of rabbits in his bag. He was a hunter, not a tracker as he said.’

Her spoon clatters, and her chair screeches against the tiles.

‘Laura?’

‘I’m going to bed. Goodnight.’

She does not give him time to call her back, sweeping from the room and slamming the door behind her.

Her first port of call is the Guard’s room, in search of Steve, preferably, but it would seem he’s out on patrol, and Dugan and Jim are the only two still sat around the fire. It doesn’t taken Dugan much to cave and tell her where Barton is now, just her hand soft on his arm, her smile sweet and voice saccharine. He’s in the dungeon, awaiting his punishment.

‘He’ll lose his fingers,’ Dugan says, when she asks what that punishment will be. ‘The ones he needs for his bow. It’ll make his life a lot more difficult, but the real punishment is living with it.’

‘That’s cruel.’

‘He broke the law,’ Jim tells her, with an idle shrug. ‘He should be glad it’s not his head.’

Laura scowls and rushes to the dungeon. It’s a dark and dank space, stinking of waste and stagnant water, and if she’s begged her father to give the prisoners better conditions, she’s begged a thousand times. When she is Queen, she thinks, she’ll dry the dungeons out, make them dry and warm. There’s no point, she thinks, in punishing prisoners with death when they can suffer through being left wanting more. Kill them with kindness, her mother had said, when Laura was too young to care about killing anyone, and now that she is older, now that she is watching the mockery her brother is making of the throne, she understands her mother better. But thoughts of the almost-maybes of her relationship with her mother are not thoughts for now.

The guard at the door steps aside in surprised acquiescence when she comes storming down the stairs and demands that he let her in, and the guard inside tries to usher her out.

‘Leave,’ she commands, and though the guard is twice the size of her, he takes only a second to meet her eyes before doing as bid. He leaves the door open behind him, and Laura doesn’t complain.

She stands there for a second, looking at the cells, barely-lit by the sconces on the wall, the faces staring at her. She is not afraid, because there is no way for a single one of them to reach her, but it is eerie, down here alone without even one of the Queen’s Guard, who have shadowed every step she’s made for a near-decade.

‘Barton?’ she calls. ‘Where are you?’

A hand appears through the bars at the far end of the dungeon, and she strides past the other prisoners, ignoring their hooting and hollering. The royals do not often come to the dungeon, and for many, they have only heard stories of the Princess. For many, she is little more than an object, something to be admired and desired and lusted after. Natasha had told her, when she first began to bleed, that this was going to come with it, with this womanhood she’s still learning, and Natasha is not much older than her, Laura knows, but she knows more. She knows enough that Laura believes almost all of the words that leave her mouth.

So she ignores them, and goes to Barton, who is waiting at the bars of his cell, startlingly naked without the leather of his jerkin and bracer. They’d given him a shirt of basic muslin, a few shillings a yard, but he wore it like it was made of horse’s hair. The fact it was ill-fitting didn’t much help either, straining over his shoulders and Laura felt only a little guilt in admiring the breadth of him, because he was not broad like the Queen’s Guard, but there was no denying his arms were easily twice the size of hers.

His face is bruised, and she reaches through the bars to touch it, only for him to flinch away.

‘Who touched you?’ she asks, quiet. Barton eyes her, and she’s sure he’s weighing the likelihood of her ordering the murder of his assailant.

‘I don’t know his name,’ he says, ‘he was one of the guards here. It was my own fault; I was being very rude to them.’

‘That makes no difference,’ she whispers, and he studies her.

In the almost-darkness like this, his eyes are starlight, so bright and so wonderful, and she watches them watching her for several moments.

‘They’re going to cut your fingers off,’ she says, and Barton nods.

‘I know. I shouldn’t have hunted in the king’s wood. I knew what the penalty was if I got caught, so I’m grateful it’s not my head they’re cutting off.’

‘It’s a stupid law. When I’m Queen, I’ll change it.’

He laughs, and her stomach twists at the sound, reaches for him again, and this time, he takes her hands in his, holds them tight. His skin is dry and warm and his fingers fit perfectly around hers, made to fit, made to hold her hands.

‘Princess,’ he says, shakes his head, ‘what are you doing down here? You should be – you should be dancing, or reading, or writing poetry or whatever it is you Princesses do these days. Your ankle! You should be resting on it, it’s sprained, you can’t be running around like this!’

She frowns, shifts her weight, trying to ignore that she’d had to put weight on it to stride, and the pain is shooting up her leg. Perhaps the twist in her stomach wasn’t because of Barton’s laugh, but because of the pain making her nauseous. Perhaps. But his worry is sweet, touching, and she squeezes his hands, trying not to let her heart twist when he squeezes back, automatic, gentle and tight and _perfect_.

‘I – I thought I might – no, you’re right. You’re right, I should – I should go.’

But she makes no move to take her hands from his, and he makes no effort to let go, and so they stand there staring at each other through the bars.

‘Princess?’

Bucky, come to collect her, Jim and Dugan no doubt having told the Sergeant where she was.

Clint’s eyes flash, and he lets go of her hands as though burned.

‘Go,’ he says, and she has a sudden urge to demand a kiss.

But instead, she just nods, and hobbles back to Bucky, standing with his arms folded and looking Very Cross Indeed.

‘What are you playing at?’ Bucky demands as he helps her up the stairs, hand tight about her arm.

‘I wanted to see him,’ she says, and says no more.

Back in her chamber, having been escorted the entire way and ordered to remain inside, Natasha is waiting for her, and gives Laura a firm pat-down as soon as she’s in arm’s reach.

‘I’m fine,’ Laura insists, swatting at her hands, ‘all is well, stop that.’

Natasha watches her like a hawk and finally asks what she’s planning.

‘Nothing,’ Laura says, but she’s a terrible liar. ‘Nothing that concerns you, anyway – no, no it does. I need you to do something for me.’

Natasha frowns. ‘I doubt I’m going to like this any more than I like most somethings I do for you.’

Laura grins, nudges her with an elbow. ‘You love doing somethings for me.’ She sobers then, lips downturned and eyebrows drawn. ‘I need you to go to the armoury, and find Barton’s things. He’s a tra – a hunter. He had a bow, arrows, a leather jerkin, a bracer, that thing that archers wear on their fingers, a few bags and pouches. He might have had other weapons, I don’t know. A knife in his boot, maybe? I know Bucky has one, so maybe Barton did, too? I don’t know, see if there’s anything else with his things.’

Natasha cocks her hip, arms folding. She looks intimidating when she’s cold like this, green eyes narrowed and mouth a thin line, but her flaming hair is an evening mess and her muslin gown is so non-descript as to be nothing at all.

‘And what am I to do with these things?’ she asks, ‘once I’ve obtained them?’

‘Take them outside the castle,’ she says, ‘through the gate and into the trees. Hide them where Barton might find them.’

‘I know nothing about Barton to know where he’d think to look,’ Natasha says, and Laura scoffs.

‘I know _you_ ,’ she says, ‘and I know you know how to think like people you aren’t. I have great faith in your abilities, Nat. Please, just do as I ask. You have a half-hour at most.’

Natasha watches her face, and Laura keeps her mouth downturned, her eyebrows drawn. Determined, she thinks, that’s what she is. She’s _determined_. And Natasha seems to see that, leans down to kiss her forehead the way she always does when Laura is up to no good.

‘A half-hour at most,’ she agrees, and heads to the door.

‘And Natasha?’

She turns back, chin raised.

‘Sam wanted to see you. Something about the oil he used on my ankle. I think he misses you.’

Something almost soft crosses Natasha’s features, and an almost-smile flits across her lips.

‘I’ll call by on my way back from the woods,’ she says, and like that, she’s gone.

It takes Laura ten minutes of straight whining to convince Jim to take her to the dungeons. He’s easy-going enough that he entertains her whining, but he still says no the first few dozen times of her politely requesting.

‘If you don’t take me, I’ll simply go myself,’ she says, and Jim laughs.

‘Princess, you won’t get past me.’

But then he goes to investigate a noise at the end of the corridor, and Laura’s bolting for the stairs and taking them as fast as her ankle will carry her. It doesn’t take her long to get back down to the dungeons, and Hodge is looking as piggish as ever, too big for his britches and too arrogant besides.

‘Step aside, Hodge,’ she says, and Hodge laughs.

‘Go back to bed, Princess, you aren’t getting in again. King’s orders.’

‘Regardless,’ she sniffs. ‘I’m here on Commander Fury’s orders. He wants to see you.’

It’s nonsense, it’s the biggest pile of nonsense since that time Steve tried to convince the royal painter that his art was good, but Hodge is not in a position to argue, and he knows better than to ignore a potential summons from his superior. So off Hodge goes, telling Laura to return to bed as though he was in the remotest position to issue orders, and Laura waits until the sound of his footsteps has faded before she takes a breath to keep her heart slow as she makes her way down the steps into the dungeon.

There is nobody inside; this time of night, there never is, and the keys are, as always, left on a hook just beside the door. The prisoners have nobody watch them overnight, because they don’t need to be supervised overnight. This suits Laura fine and, taking the keys, she marches to the end of the dungeon.

‘Barton,’ she says, and he appears at the bars, all glowing eyes and frowning mouth.

‘What are you doing?’ he asks, sounding too dry and she swallows.

‘You’re being released,’ she says, and fumbles the keys, hands shaking as she searches for the right key.

‘You can’t do that,’ he breathes, and reaches through the bars to take her wrists. Her pulse flutters, and his eyes flash. ‘Don’t do that.’

‘I can,’ she says, ‘and I am. Let go of me, Barton.’

He lets go.

Door unlocked and screeching as it swings open, she yanks the key free and steps back.

‘Follow me,’ she says, chin high, shoulders back, a picture-perfect queen-to-be.

She doesn’t wait for him, instead striding for the stairs to return to the castle proper, leaving him to stare at her back before hastening to follow. He does so after a second, and she shoves the keys back onto the nail as she passes it. Barton races after her up the stairs, and catches her arm, twists her back to look at him.

‘You’ll get - the guard will tell the king,’ he says, and Laura snorts.

‘What will the king do?’ she asks and presses her free hand against his, forces him with a gentle push to release her so she can carry on up the stairs. ‘Ground me? I am too old for all that nonsense. I do not believe you are a bad man, Barton.’

‘Clint,’ he corrects. ‘My name’s Clint.’

‘Clint Barton,’ she hums. ‘Well Clint, consider this a favour, if you like. A debt.’

He frowns at the back of her head, and feeling his stare, she turns to grin over her shoulder.

‘Someday, I may need you to rescue me,’ she teases, ‘that _is_ what heroes do, is it not? Rescue princesses in their time of need?’

‘In fairy tales, perhaps,’ Clint tells her, and her smile slips when his face is completely serious, no humour in his eyes. ‘In real life, the heroes leave it to the professionals. If you ever need rescuing, Princess, I will not be the one doing the rescuing.’

Laura thinks on this as she walks him to the gate. There is something startlingly sad about him, something that’s been long lost from his happiness, and she thinks she’s seen him looking at her as though he is sorry. Sorry for what, she can’t say, but he seems it all the same. And it makes her sorry too, sorry that whatever upsets him is allowed to eat at his insides until he’s left hollow for it. The curse weighs heavily on him, of course it does, and she doesn’t know the details. Later, she thinks she might petition Peggy to find out, because Peggy would know where to begin.

They reach the gate unimpeded, and Laura does not count her blessings, because as soon as Hodge finds out that Commander Fury _hadn’t_ summoned him, and returns to his post to find that Clint is _gone_ , the alarm will be raised, and that doesn’t discount the possibility that someone will see the Princess with a prisoner that had been paraded through the gates not one afternoon ago, and they’ll approach. She has minutes at best, seconds at worst.

‘Here,’ she whispers, hurried, pulling him into the shadows beside the wicket, ‘this is the gate we left though this morning. Are you in need of anything to leave with? Food or weapons? I had your bow and arrows collected from the armoury and left outside the walls, you’ll be able to find them.’

He nods, still looks unhappy.

‘You shouldn’t have done this,’ he whispers at her, little more than a hiss. ‘You should have let them have my fingers.’

‘Clint,’ she whispers, and steps into him. ‘You are not a bad man, and my father is overzealous, hunting those who hunt on his lands, regardless of why. I refuse to see you punished for doing what you have to do to survive. And I – I can see it, in your eyes. The – I understand why you’re in the woods. I’m not half as naïve as I must seem. What happened when you – I know magic when I see it, I have a Fairy Godmother; I’ve seen her blessings first-hand. I _have_ her blessings. But I know the other side of it, too. I know curses as well as I know blessings.’

He swallows, and she watches his Adam’s apple bob before dragging her eyes back to his, so ice-blue and cold, with such warm contrition.

‘Go,’ she tells him, and presses a hand to his face, feels the searing heat of his skin against her palm. ‘Through the wicket, into the woods. Hide for a month; they’ll stop looking for you.’

He nods, and touches her hand with his fingertips before taking it and pressing a kiss to her knuckles. It feels like a brand, and her hand stings with the heat of it for hours after, long after she’s in bed and asleep.

‘Take care of that ankle,’ he murmurs.

‘I will. And you, do try to avoid getting caught again,’ she says, ‘I doubt I will ever be allowed into the dungeon unaccompanied after this, so there’ll be no more daring rescues.’

‘I’ll miss it,’ he teases, and she beams.

For half a second, she wonders if he might take liberties and kiss her, but all he does is smile and duck through the door.

Out of sight, out of mind. Laura shuts the door, bolts it, and listens, as though she could hear him moving. She hadn’t known he was there in the clearing until he’d made himself known to her, and she can only hear the clattering of the Guard looking for her.

She meets Steve on the stairs, and he’s _furious_. Natasha is a few steps behind him, fighting the Princess’s case, but she’s going ignored, because Steve is nothing if not single-minded about her safety. Halfway back to her chambers, the alarm begins to ring, a chiming bell that only ever means trouble in the dungeons. An escaped prisoner, Laura knows, and tries not to smile.

Natasha catches her gaze, and they avert their eyes, both biting back wicked little grins.


	2. There Was a Princess and a Book

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura causes mischief and Peggy does nothing to stop her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for a mention of witch-burning

 

Six weeks pass in agonising boredom. Laura is not allowed out of her guards' sight, and all of them received punishment for letting her run around releasing prisoners, which puts all of them into a foul temper for the first fortnight, but by the third week, it’s as if Laura hadn’t aided and abetted a known hunter. How Natasha managed to escape punishment, despite anyone with half a thought in their head knowing full well she was involved in Clint’s confiscated things going missing from the armoury, Laura is not entirely certain, but at this point, she’s not going to complain too greatly about it, because it means Natasha is free to roam about the castle and go see Sam in the infirmary under the guise of asking advice about Laura’s ankle.

Admittedly, Laura sends her on this quest several times over the first few weeks, because Natasha is wonderful, and Laura would not have anyone else sleep in the next room for the life of her, but her attention can be suffocating at times, and without anywhere else to venture for privacy – even her trips to the library, where she can almost guarantee privacy as most of the Guardsmen will never dare to venture for the dusty, old-paper stink of the chamber, now see her accompanied by Gabe, who adores books almost as much as Laura does, and he still keeps to himself, but now he’s keeping to himself in her eye-line – the suffocation comes much faster. So off Natasha goes to Sam, where she spends the better part of the day. Doctor Wilson is a fantastic doctor, and a better man besides, and Laura is glad to see Natasha happy.

She’s even happier to have the peace to bathe without interruption. Mostly, anyway, because between Dugan and Bucky, she rarely gets to have a bath without them asking if she’s drowned yet. Honestly, they could do with having a bath or two, and maybe they’d understand why she doesn’t talk to them every five seconds.

(Admittedly, it’s because she’s reading, and is too caught up in tales of star-crossed lovers and haunted mansions on high mountains swamped in fog and mystery to pay them any mind.)

As Laura is confined to the castle and its garden for some time, Monty and Jacques return to their day-to-day business; Monty returns to his estate in a quiet corner of the kingdom, where he writes to her in the first week that he will be longer than expected, for he has been beset by badgers, could she please spare Heather for a week to help him sort it out? Laura makes a show of humming and hawing over it, much to Heather’s quiet amusement, but Laura wouldn’t keep her favourite maid from her husband for the world, and sends her off to be with him until he was called back to the castle with instructions to get with child again; Thomas, she orders, needs a little sister to dote on.

When they’d married, Laura had insisted Heather leave her service as castle staff, because she’d married into nobility (royalty, really, because Monty was Laura’s fourth cousin) which made her a Lady, and Ladies did not scrub floors, but Heather had swatted at her with a broom and told her to not be so ridiculous. Laura had petitioned Monty to control his new wife, but he’d just laughed at her and told her he hadn’t married her for her placid nature.

So Heather stayed in the castle while Monty was on duty as a member of the Queen’s Guard, and returned with him to the Falsworth estate when he was not. Like now; she was back at the estate with her husband, fighting badgers and hopefully making another Falsworth baby for Laura to spoil rotten and threaten to steal at every turn.

Jacques, for his part, had vanished. After a near decade of his quiet, fatherly protection, Laura is still not entirely sure where he goes when he isn’t following her around and occasionally making things explode. She’s tried asking him – they all have! – but he pretends like he doesn’t understand them, and they’d all known he wasn’t Yorkish, but it doesn’t solve any mysteries. Her father must know, Laura thinks, because he’d been the one to employ Jacques and place him in the Queen’s Guard in the first place, but like Natasha, he’d just seemed to appear overnight, as though he’d been there all along. Laura can’t imagine the Queen’s Guard without him, and supposes she wouldn’t trade his mysteries for the world.

This leaves her with the other five, and they’re all nuisances, getting underfoot and asking her questions she’s answered what must surely be a thousand times. No matter where she goes, one of them follows her. Even her visits to the kitchen, to petition Miss Martinelli to make Peggy answer her calls, are not unaccompanied, and there is only so many times Laura can sit through Jim or Gabe or even Bucky that one time, when he’d gotten his britches in a twist over something Steve had done, flirt with the poor cook before she clips them all ‘round the ear and stops going to the kitchen. 

Afterwards, Laura elects to spend her free time in the garden with her hound, a Lucky pup rescued from the woods and nursed back to health by Laura herself, or the underground laboratory of resident mad scientist Anthony Stark. Stark was beloved as a name amongst the nobility; his father, half a century ago, had perfected indoor plumbing without poisoning the castle's inhabitants. The King, for his part, allowed Stark to tinker away in his laboratory, because tinkering kept him quiet. By no means did it keep him out of trouble, but it kept him from getting underfoot for the better part.

Steve couldn't stand him, and the feeling, so far as Laura could determine, was not only not returned, but Stark would go out of his way to befriend the Captain, often with hilarious results. Recently however, he'd calmed down, sought out Laura's company when he could, and with her confined to the palace as she was, there was plenty of time for her to spare. Even so, it was the only place where the Guardsmen refused to go and she was allowed some time away from them. Stark’s laboratory was full of dangers, and he had a box of frogs for a brain, but he would sooner die than see a hair on her head harmed.

She sits in his laboratory now, in the second week, watching him pour thin metal into a thinner frame, chin in her hands, and she sighs.

'What's wrong, Peachy?'

She's not sure where the nickname comes from, but she’ll admit under duress that she likes it, likes that it's something personal to him. He hasn’t called her Princess since the day there were introduced, and she adores that he’ll avoid using her name as much as he possibly can, preferring instead to call her epithet after epithet. It had taken him several months to settle upon “Peachy,” and asking for an explanation gets her only a raised eyebrow and a smirk. Something filtered through several layers of filth then, no doubt, and she’ll have no part in it.

'Oh, wait, I know; it's your rugged, handsome, cursed Hero.'

Laura throws a shilling lying on the bench at him. Stark bats it away and blows on his metal frame.

'You told me yourself that he was handsome.'

'He was,' Laura sighs, because Laura is nineteen and beautiful people are in her everyday periphery. She folds her arms on the bench and settles her weight onto them, leaning forward slightly, looking closer at what he’s doing. ‘He wasn’t handsome in the way that – that – that Bucky’s handsome. But he was – there was something so human about him. He was, he was just – ‘

‘Beautiful?’

‘No, no. Steve is beautiful. Bucky’s beautiful. Heather and Natasha and Miss Potts are beautiful. Beautiful isn’t what he was. But he was beautiful. Oh, never mind. I can’t explain it; it doesn’t make any sense.’

‘No,’ Stark agrees, ‘no, it doesn’t. But I understand anyway. It’s like looking at something that was broken and mended, and you can see the cracks, but it’s still perfect. Almost more perfect because it’s broken. I think Pepper found a vase that had been mended with liquid gold a few years ago. It had a name, but I don’t remember what it was.’

‘You mean you didn’t listen,’ Laura snorts, and Stark grins at her from across the bench.

‘It’s possible,’ he admits.

They lapse back into silence, and Stark finishes whatever it is he’s doing with the little metal frame, teases a little ring barely thicker than a strand of hair free of the mould and holds it to the light to examine it.

‘What exactly is that for?’ Laura asks.

‘Haven’t a clue,’ Stark replies, and Laura rests her chin in her hands again, watches him set it aside and make – make – well, he’s clearly making something, because it’s glowing.

And then it starts hissing and spitting and after a moment, with a bang that rattles in Laura’s ears, it catches fire.

Laura is sure it doesn’t reflect well on either of them that she stays sitting where she is without moving while Stark throws a damp cloth over the fire and proceeds to ignore it until the smoke’s dissipated.

* * *

When Clint gets back to the cottage, his chest is heaving with the exertion. He hadn’t stopped running since he hit the woods, crashing through the underbrush and into more than a few trees, rebounding off them and tripping over roots. Every time he’d hit the ground, he’d rolled to his feet and taken off again, determined to reach the cottage before the moon reached its zenith. That would be the earliest, he thinks, that the guards would be anywhere close to catching up to him, and he needs to be safe inside the Wards before they do.

The feel of Laura’s skin burns against his mouth, and when he reaches the cottage, he kicks the door open, throws his bags and bow and quiver inside and wheels, moves to the stream not a thicket away, dunking his head in it.

He watches the bubbles streaming from his mouth and nose as the water rushes past him, and tries to get the echo of Laura’s heartbeat, the gentle shush of her whispers out of his ears.

‘You know you cannot drown, don’t you?’ Peggy asks, and he tries to yank himself up, but his neck’s caught in the current, and he topples into the stream.

For a moment, he lies there, staring up through the water at her, and then her hands are around his arms, and she’s pulling him upright.

‘Clint,’ she says, smiles, and Clint sniffs, wipes his nose with the back of his arm, offers her a half-smile in return. ‘It’s been a long time.’

‘I met her,’ he says, and sounds sad to his own ears.

He can’t hear Laura’s heartbeat any more, and he supposes he should be grateful for that.

‘I know,’ Peggy says. ‘I helped her come to you in the dungeon. You - ’

She pauses, considers her words, and eventually gives up on finding any suitable enough to fit the purpose.

Instead, she says, ‘you did well, to control yourself.’

‘I’ve had a lot of practice,’ he replies, and glances back at the stream.

Shaking himself out like a dog, he strides back towards the cottage, Peggy striding right along with him. As they walk, he reaches over and flicks some of her loose, dark locks.

‘You were sunshine yellow when I last saw you,’ he says, and she runs her hands through her hair, shakes it out.

‘Times change,’ she says, ‘I wore a corset when you last saw me, too, but I don’t see you complaining about that.’

‘I’m not complaining,’ he hums, and she glances up at him, watches the smile play on his mouth. ‘I like this hair better. Suits you more.’

Peggy hums, and twists her finger, pinning her hair up into a popular style. Clint eyes it, and as though he thinks she can’t see him, makes the most exaggerated, disapproving faces he can probably manage. Peggy smiles to herself, and curtseys to him when he stands to the side to let her into the cottage first. Snorting, he follows her in, and latches the door behind them, lingers by it to watch her make her way around the small space, touching everything new and familiarising herself with everything that’s changed since she was last here, three hundred years ago.

‘You’ve finally started decorating, I see.’

‘A little,’ he nods, and moves to clear the table – a crooked thing made of wood with its bark still attached and stained rust-brown – of books and cutlery.

‘Do you sleep?’ she asks, looks at the bed, immaculately made, with dust on the sheets.

‘A little. He’s still there, in my dreams, when I have them. It’s not worth the nightmares.’

Peggy clucks her tongue and continues her investigation. It doesn’t take long; there isn’t much in here. Clint spends as much of his time as he can out of the cottage, out of these four walls, and she hums.

‘She said she has your blessing,’ Clint says, when Peggy offers no judgement of what he’s done – or more precisely, hasn’t done – to the cottage, ‘what did you bless her with?’

‘A heart of molten gold,’ Peggy says. ‘It was an oversight on my part, I think. She’s too wilful. Too stubborn. She’ll come find you; I have no doubt of that.’

Clint scrubs his face, finds a questionably clean shirt and rubs it over his hair and the back of his neck. For a while, he doesn’t say anything, stares at the wall with the linen pressed to his nape.

‘She can’t,’ he says, when he’s done ruminating. ‘It’s – I could have killed her.’

‘But you didn’t,’ Peggy says, and strides across the old boards to put her hand on his cheek. ‘She’ll think of that above all else. You could have, but you didn’t. She believes in the good in people, just like – ‘

‘Don’t,’ Clint snaps, and Peggy’s jaws clack shut.

Fair Ladies shouldn’t be snapped at, but Peggy has always given him a little more leniency than perhaps she should. He had been loved, had been the very beat of a heart she had loved as dearly as she would love her own child, had she had one. That had been all she needed to dote on him.

What happened that day – the ice had been too thick for even her to claw her way through to save him, and she had not yet forgiven herself. But he hadn’t forgiven himself either.

 She sighs, and turns her hand, brushes the back of her fingers across his cheek.

‘This could be your chance,’ she says, ‘you could right the wrongs. You could break it.’

‘I’ll break her,’ Clint says, all bitter resignation and sad sigh.

‘She’s stubborn. There hasn’t been a single thing to break her yet.’

There is something in Clint’s face, some wetness to his eyes and some salt in the twist of his mouth, and Peggy reaches up with the other hand, holds his face and drags it down to rest her brow against his.

‘I’ll burn her to ash,’ Clint chokes, ‘like I do the rest. And what then? Another three hundred years waiting for some – some – for a girl to come stumbling across me and not – they tried to kill me, did you know that? Two hundred and twelve years ago, in a village on the far side of the woods, they tied me to a stake and set fire to me, and when the fire burnt out, I was still stood there and they were not.’

Peggy says nothing, and brushes her thumbs against the tears rolling down Clint’s cheeks.

‘I went by the village a few years ago,’ he whispers, ‘just to see. The earth has been salted; not even ravens roost there now.’

Peggy strokes his cheeks, waits for the tears to abate.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, ‘I had no idea. I would have done something.’

‘I’m not yours,’ he replies with a shake of his head, and she hasn’t seen his eyes so sad since he held that cold body in his arms and offered himself to the mercy of the King. ‘There’s nothing you can do to protect me. Even this house, it’s – it’s not mine. It’s not for me.’

The cottage had been erected in _her_ name, to be found only by _her_ and those _she_ loved. He had been loved the most, loved so dearly as to be the only one, and so Peggy had woven her magic to extend it to only him, to the very heart that had once beat in _her_ chest. It had worked, and for a long while, Peggy had thought it would be enough. But Clint could not be protected by her magic, because he was not, as he’d said, one of hers.

‘I would have found a way,’ she whispers, and Clint knocks their noses together.

‘What’s done is done,’ he says, ‘I haven’t been burnt at a stake since, so there’s nothing to worry about now.’

It’s bullshit, and they both know it’s bullshit.

Clint straightens after a minute or two stood silently, braced against her, breathing the smell of her in, and he moves away to collect his things, hanging his bow and quiver up, searching his bags to make sure everything he’d had was still there. Peggy moves to the tankard-vase beside his unused bed, brushes her fingertips over the dying flowers and brings them back to full bloom, shining bright yellow and pink and purple, the smell of lavender filling the space from floor to ceiling.

‘I met Captain Rogers today, too,’ he says, as he picks up the dinner-bag and finds it heavy.

Whoever Laura had sent to collect his things had left through the kitchen, and stopped to fill the bag on their way; there are breads and meats and cheeses wrapped up in cold cloths, and he empties them onto the table.

‘Steven?’ Peggy asks, and comes to stand the other side of the table. She doesn’t eat, doesn’t need to, but she knows Angie’s wrapping when she sees it, and touches the knot of the cheesecloth with gentle, searing fingertips.

‘He stinks of you,’ Clint says, ‘of your magic. The way she always did. You dote on the girl too much.’

‘She wished for his health,’ Peggy says, ‘and I would not be much of a Godmother if I did not provide.’

Clint’s cheeks are mottled, his nose red, his eyes sore, but he manages a smile, something fond and familiar to his face, and Peggy reaches over the table to pinch his cheeks.

‘Now, come along, Barton, eat up and get some rest, I’ll stay the night to Ward you. He won’t dare cross me.’

Clint doesn’t much look like he believes her, but he drags a thrice-mended, crooked chair over to the equally crooked table and sets about eating while Peggy sets about creating Wards for his bed, tutting over the state of the blankets.

* * *

There’s a storm in the fourth week, and Laura stands on the balcony, looking out over the lightning splitting the sky, the thunder rattling her bones, and she’s soaked to the bone. It’s freezing out here, but she finds herself thinking about Clint instead of the gooseflesh of her bare arms, the weight of her hair pulling at her scalp. She wonders if he has somewhere dry and warm to stay, somewhere where he can keep out of the worst of it.

‘Laura, precious, come inside before you catch cold.’

She whips around, breath catching in her chest.

‘Peggy!’ she cries, and rushes inside to throw herself into her Godmother’s arms, breathing in the smell of her, roses and ink and tea and magic.

‘Hello, my dove,’ the Fair Lady laughs, and presses sizzling kisses to Laura’s sopping crown. ‘Did you miss me?’

‘So badly,’ Laura tells her, and raises her head to look her in the eye. ‘Where have you been? I called you a dozen times!’

‘I had – other business to attend to,’ she says, ‘things happened that required my attention.’

Laura eyes her, and then moves to get a towel to dry her hair. Peggy, tall and beautiful with her hair perfectly curled, lips apple-red and her dress immaculate even after Laura threw herself onto it, moves to put a stand by the fireplace, where a fire had started blazing when Laura wasn’t looking, and puts a clean and dry nightdress on it while Laura dries off. She takes the sopping wet dress from the Princess once Laura’s gotten out of it, and hangs it on the stand as well.

In her robe but nothing else, because Peggy had known Laura since her infancy, and had seen much worse than the very top of her thigh, Laura curls into the armchair and looks up at her Godmother.

‘You’ve been gone so long,’ Laura says, ‘I thought you’d – I was worried you’d forgotten about me.’

‘As if I could forget my favourite Goddaughter,’ Peggy teases, and takes the comb from Laura’s vanity, nudges her forward with a finger, climbing in behind her. ‘Sit still, I know how you can be.’

‘You brush hair worse than Natasha. Even Monty can brush hair nicer than you.’

‘And Lord Falsworth has a wife with very long, very curly hair that requires a gentle hand,’ Peggy sniffs, ‘and she’ll scream bloody murder if he yanks. Whereas you, precious, have very straight hair, when it isn’t fit for a pigsty.’

Laura makes a rude noise with her mouth, but obligingly sits still and lets Peggy comb through her hair. She takes her time, eases through the tangles Laura’s hurried undoing of the day’s braids had caused, and when she’s done, she rubs the pads of her fingers against Laura’s scalp where the pull of the comb stung the worst. The crackle of magic sizzles across Laura’s skin, seeping down her spine, and she shivers, relaxes. Peggy’s smile is audible, a soft hum of amusement, and then she’s shifting her weight, tipping Laura a little more forward to braid her hair intricately against her scalp and down her back, a dozen strands wound around each other until the very end, where Peggy secures it with whatever magic she uses to secure braids.

‘I have missed you,’ Laura says again, and Peggy’s arms come around her, hold her close.

Laura rests against her, sighing softly and relishing in the warmth of the Fair Lady behind her. Peggy has always been warm – Laura suspects it’s the magic in her – and when she does silly things like stand in a thunderstorm thinking about a cursed man living in the woods, it’s nice to have that warmth at her back.

They sit there quietly for several long minutes, and then Peggy’s nudging Laura up to put on the dry, warm nightdress. As Laura pulls it over her head, Peggy asks her what she’d called her for.

‘It must have been important, to call me a dozen times.’

Laura pauses, dress half-settled over her. Then she flushes pink, cheeks and ears and down her neck.

‘Oh,’ she says, and looks at her ankle, still black and blue, but with more yellow in the bruising now. ‘A few weeks ago, I was riding in the woods, and Duke – he panicked, I suppose – and he ran off into the woods, away from the boys. He took me with him, of course, until he bucked me and left me, lost and with a sprained ankle.’

‘Yes,’ Peggy nods, ‘Angie told me about that.’

Laura is not surprised that Miss Martinelli has told her – lover always sticks in Laura’s throat, but she supposes that that is what they are – about Laura’s mishap in the woods, because everyone in the castle had known about it, she’d kicked up that much of a fuss about it.

‘She didn’t know the rest,’ Laura says, and Peggy’s hip cocks, her arms fold.

Magic crackles like pins-and-needles across her skin, and Laura feels it from the other side of the room.

‘There was a man,’ she says, ‘a – he was so handsome, Peggy, the most handsome I’ve ever seen. He found me and he was nice, wanted to help me get back to the castle by finding the boys and leading them to me. And then Steve arrested him. At the time, I suppose it was because he was a stranger in the woods, and he’d been alone with me, and you know how Steve is. But then they found rabbits in a bag he was carrying, and – he was a hunter. So they charged him with hunting in the King’s Wood, and they were going to cut his fingers off.’

‘Going,’ Peggy says, eyes narrowing and lips thinning. ‘Why didn’t they cut his fingers off, precious?’

‘Because I went into the dungeons, and I unlocked his cell door, and I led him to the wicket so that he could get into the woods and disappear.’

Peggy does not look angry. She doesn’t even look disappointed. She just looks tired.

‘You released a hunter back into the woods?’ she asks.

‘Yes,’ Laura replies, and swallows, plays with the lace at the front of the nightdress. ‘Because he’s – he’s got a curse. It’s – there was a moment in the woods, and I didn’t tell Steve, because I know Steve, and I know the boys, and they’d have tried to kill him there and then! - but there was a moment where he – he wasn’t human, for a moment or two. He was something else, and it was. It was cold, so cold, like being doused in ice-water, and he – he was so blue. Not his skin, but his, his eyes glowed blue, like the fire in Stark’s laboratory, it glows blue sometimes. It was that kind of blue. So hot and so cold at the same time.’

Something in Peggy’s face changes, and she turns away.

‘Oh,’ she says, and Laura rushes to her side, clutches her arm in both her hands.

‘What is it? Do you know him?’

Peggy cannot lie to her; she made a promise, the first time she introduced herself to Laura’s standing memory, to never lie to her, and Fair Folk cannot break their promises. Bend them, yes. But not break them, and Peggy is one of the best.

‘I know him,’ she says. ‘We go a long way back, Clint Barton and I.’

Laura takes a breath at hearing his name again; though they’d known his surname was Barton, not a single person she’d asked had known his Christian name, and she’d not offered up the answer. Hearing it from Peggy’s mouth makes it real again, like it had been a dream and she’d convinced herself she’d imagined hearing him introduce himself.

‘Clint,’ she echoes, and draws another breath. ‘What happened to curse him?’

‘I cannot tell you that,’ Peggy says, ‘I am as bound by his curse as he is. It was many centuries ago, the curse, and I did what I could to protect him. He wasn’t one of my wards, so there were only the paltriest protections to offer him. But I did the best I could.’

There are a lot of things that Peggy doesn’t tell her, this Laura knows. There are a lot of things that Peggy can’t tell her. So Laura knows when there is something that Peggy is not saying, and knows which is a _can’t_ , and which is a _won’t_. This is the latter.

‘The other things that you had to attend to,’ Laura says, tentative, because there is every possibility she is wrong. ‘Were they him? Was it because of him that you couldn’t answer my call?’

‘It was part of it,’ she admits. ‘There were other things, but that was one of them.’

Laura nods, and sighs a little.

‘Do you think,’ she starts, plays with her fingers now, picking at the nails. ‘Will he be safe in the woods? Now that we know he’s there, is he still safe? Is he even still in the woods?’

‘He’s still in the woods,’ Peggy tells her, ‘and for the most part, he’ll be safe. He has places to hide, I made sure of that. So long as no one goes deliberately looking for him, he’ll be safe.’

‘But if one was to go looking. Would it be possible to find him?’

‘Laura, I understand that you are not allowed to leave the castle until your ankle is healed. I will not allow you to escape the castle again.’

Laura eyes her. ‘I may be wrong,’ she sniffs, ‘but I am almost positive you were behind the distraction that had Jim down the other end of the corridor when I went to release Clint from the dungeons.’

Peggy looks too innocent. ‘I had nothing to do with that.’

‘And Hodge’s silliness, that was not you either? You had nothing to do with that pig-faced nuisance leaving his post at such a blatant lie?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘When I met Clint, he had yellow flowers tucked into his jerkin. Was there a reason for that?’

Peggy doesn’t answer, and her eyebrows are raised just enough that she looks flabbergasted, by her standards, anyway. Her expression settles into one of contemplation.

‘No,’ she says, ‘when I knew him – properly knew him, before the curse – he wasn’t one for flowers.’

Laura thinks on this for long enough that Peggy starts to talk, just to fill the silence hanging heavy between them.

‘It’s best to leave him be,’ she says, ‘his curse is dangerous.’

‘All curses are dangerous.’

‘This is different, Laura. You are put directly into the path of danger by this curse, and I shan’t allow you to come to harm because you’re too headstrong. My blessing should have been caution.’

‘And instead you gave me a heart of molten gold,’ Laura says, standing tall.

They eye each other, and then grin, laugh.

Peggy is the first to sober.

‘You truly want to know about the curse?’ she asks, because the want of knowledge burns bright in Laura’s eyes, as molten gold as her heart.

‘Yes,’ Laura replies. ‘Very much so. Perhaps I can find a way to break the curse, if I know what curse it is.’

‘There is a book in the library,’ Peggy tells her, reluctant, because she cannot lie, though she wishes to, quite desperately.

‘There are a thousand books in the library.’

‘It was one your mother used to read you,’ Peggy says.

There was only ever one book her mother used to read, and Laura had vowed to never open it again, not now that her mother was no longer here to read it to her. She’d long forgotten the sound of her mother’s voice, and paintings only barely kept the memory of her face alive.

‘You gave me Lucky when I wished for a friend,’ she says, ‘and when I wished it, you gave Steve the body his heart deserved. Can I not wish for answers?’

‘It doesn’t work that way with magic,’ Peggy reminds her, gentle, hand on Laura’s cheek, pins-and-needles hot. ‘You know this, you’ve always known it. The book in the library is the best I can offer you.’

Something seems to catch her attention and she glances away.

‘My time is done,’ she says, and leans down to kiss Laura’s brow. ‘Sleep, precious. I’ll return as soon as I can. Stay safe, and do not go into the woods again.’

And just like that, she’s gone, no smoke or flowers or sparks. One second she is there, and then next she is not. She leaves behind the smell of her skin, her ink-stained fingertips, the tea on her breath, but that’s all that Laura has to remember her by.

‘Or you’re sure for a big surprise,’ Laura whispers, and sighs, turns away from the empty space and towards her bed, where she lies for several hours watching the storm.

* * *

When Laura was young, before her mother passed, her favourite part of _bedtime_ was the stories her mother would tell her, lay beside her daughter, book propped in her lap. Laura was a Princess, her mother a Queen, and there were maids to read Laura stories. But Louise would make time for her daughter, would rise from the war table or leave the reams of parchment awaiting her steady eye and familiar looping signature to come to her daughter’s bedchamber as she was returning from her nightly bath. They’d lie on Laura’s bed and Laura would drift off to the sound of her mother’s voice.

‘Ma,’ she says, as she says every night, ‘I want the one about the dragon.’

There was only one story about a dragon, Louise had learnt, that Laura cared about. So she obtained the book, heavy with other fairy tales, and it would fall open to the well-thumbed pages. Settling together, Laura brushed her hair from her eyes, too young to focus on the words for long, and Louise rested the book against her legs, propped up so that Laura could look at the pictures.

‘“ _A long time ago_ ,”’ she’d begin, ‘“ _a beautiful princess lived in a rich and vibrant land. She was very beautiful, the fairest in all the kingdoms, and her people loved her very much. The King was sure she’d make a fine Queen one day, and finer still would be the husband she’d take. He would have to be a fine Prince to make a Queen of her, for the King would not hand over his kingdom to someone his daughter, who was all he had left in the world, could not fall in love with and find happiness in the arms of. The Princess agreed whole-heartedly to his terms of marriage, but her choice of partner was not exactly what her father had in mind, for she had fallen in love with entirely the wrong person; her personal stablehand, who she had grown up with. While she was learning to ride, he was learning his trade, and so they spent much of their youth together. By the time they were grown, they were madly in love. It was not a secret in the castle, and though the King did not approve, he did not tell his daughter no.”’_

‘Pa tells me “no” a lot,’ Laura would say, and Louise would laugh, brush her fingers over her daughter’s hair, silken and the warm earth tones of the forest in autumn, warm with the softness of her heart.

‘He cares a lot about you,’ she would tell her daughter, ‘he wants you to be safe and happy. He only tells you “no” when you might get hurt or sad.’

Laura would sigh and ask her mother to continue, for “no” was still “no,” irrespective of its reason and Laura had little time to spare reasoning too much thought.

‘“ _For the longest time_ ,”’ Louise would say, picking up where she left off, ‘“ _the Princess was sure that she would grow up to marry her stablehand one day, for she had not been told that such a thing was impossible. Longing to be married, she would steal away with him and play at marriage, doing as married couples do, trading goods and knowledge and kisses, and pretending that her horse could officiate a wedding._

‘“ _But as they grew older, so suitors came courting, and the Princess grew frightened of the future. She didn’t want to leave her home behind, nor did she want to be without her love, who she now knew she could not wed. And so, doing what she could to stay in the palace, she turned down suitor after suitor, not wanting them to sway her into marriage when they were not her love._

‘“ _Her father, the King, grew tired of her refusals, and arranged for her to meet a final suitor, the marriage already finalised with the suitor’s father, a King of a neighbouring kingdom, with whom a powerful alliance could be forged. The Princess, not knowing of this arrangement, refused the suitor’s hand, and told the Prince that she was in love with another and would only marry him. The Prince, besotted with her as he was, and hurt by the refusal, reported back to his father, who told the King what his son had said._

‘“ _The King was furious, but he was also fair, and did not push his daughter to marry when she was so clearly unhappy. Weeks passed of the King trying to convince the Princess of the futility of wishing to marry a stablehand; she was royalty, and royalty could never marry for love. But they could learn to love the one they had married, as he had learnt to love her mother, and as she would learn to love her husband.”_ ’

‘That’s stupid,’ Laura would grunt. ‘You shouldn’t marry just because some old man says so. You should marry who you want.’

Louise would laugh, but not correct her daughter’s thinking, for she was young, and young girls were prone to the fancies of fairy tales. There would be time later to tell Laura the way her cards had been dealt, the hand she would have to play, and the burdens she would have to bear. There would be no True Love for her, not like in the fairy tales. But there was time for that later, when she was not so young and not so desperate to believe.

Louise herself had loved fairy tales as a girl, and as she’d grown, so they’d fallen from her favour, treaties and laws taking their place to make her a better Queen for her people. She’d fallen out of love with Prince Charming by the time she married her husband, and by the time their eldest son had been born, she had come to love him as she had once loved Prince Charming. Laura would have the same fate, she was sure, and she would learn to love just as well as her mother had.

‘“ _A fierce storm came across the kingdom, and the Princess was kidnapped! Thieves came into her bedchamber, wearing all black, and using the storm as a cover, they bundled her out of sight! She didn’t even have time to scream before she was gone, lost to her family and her home. The King was distraught, terrified for his daughter’s safety, but he did not have to worry for long; the King of the neighbouring kingdom wrote him a letter, and explained in that letter that he had kidnapped the Princess to marry his son._

‘“ _The King was furious, for a Princess could not marry without her father’s consent, and consent was now an impossibility. So the King gathered his best men to mount an assault to reclaim her, and sent out a scouting party to discover what challenges they faced. Many men did not return, and those that did spoke of a terrible beast, a dragon as big as the castle itself, mighty and terrifying, with claws as sharp as steel and fangs as long as their legs! The King was frantic with want to get his daughter back home safe and away from the beast, and he hurried to send his best men out to rescue her. Though he sent out dozens, not a single man returned, consumed by the dragon’s greedy fire._

‘“ _Desperate to see his love returned safely, the stablehand offered his services. He had no experience in fighting monsters, but he did have experience of getting in and out of small spaces, for he had spent many years sneaking around the castle with the Princess to steal a few moments alone with her, and he was bigger than the Princess. If he could but get into the place where she was being kept, he would be able to get her out. There was no need to fight the dragon and lose his life.”_ ’

Laura, despite having heard the story a thousand times over, would gasp and clutch at her mother’s arm.

‘Did he save her?’ she would ask, and peer at the words, but she was sleepy, and they would blend together.

‘“ _The King, now even more desperate to see his daughter returned, agreed to send the stablehand. As a reward for rescuing her he said, if he returned her safe to her home and her people, the King would accept the stablehand as his daughter’s True Love, and he would allow them to defy all laws and marry without the Princess needing to abdicate._

‘“ _Eager to fulfil what was clearly his destiny, the stablehand gathered his tools and rode for the neighbouring kingdom. By now, there were guards on every check point, and a challenge awaited him before he even reached the dragon. But the stablehand was cunning, and he managed to pass all challenges he faced, be they guard or monster._

‘“ _Soon enough, he had reached the Princess’ tower, and saw the dragon that had slain so many of his King’s best men. The dragon was truly fierce indeed, blue like fire and white like ice, and it was giant, bigger than any creature the stablehand had ever seen, and nearly as big as the castle he had just left behind.”’_

‘I would fight it,’ Laura would say, her mouth a thin line and her little fists clenched tight. ‘I do not fear a dragon.’

Louise would laugh, the way she would always laugh.

‘“ _But he was not afraid, because the dragon was too big to be faster than him. He dodged its fearsome fangs and claws, and stayed hidden from its fiery breath, inching his way closer to the small window that led inside._

‘“ _The Princess, when he finally breached the dragon’s defences and made his way into the tower, was eager to see him, throwing herself into his arms, and they kissed True Love’s kiss. It was not their first, but it was not, surely, to be their last._

‘“ _Sure of his success, the stablehand led the Princess back the way he’d come, sure he could sneak her past the dragon. But the Princess was not dressed for climbing through windows the way she could back home, and her gown caught on the bars, slowing their progress. The stablehand did what he could to distract the dragon and give the Princess time to detangle herself, but the dragon was not to be swayed from its duty._

‘“ _With an almighty roar, the dragon swiped its terrible claws._ ” ’

Laura would gasp the way she gasped every time the dragon attacked, her golden-brown eyes so wide, her mouth a perfect O, and Louise would flatten her palm against her daughter’s hair for a moment before turning the page.

‘“ _The Princess cried out, and fell from the window at last, falling into a heap upon the ground. Rushing to her side, the stablehand lifted her into his arms and ran, dodging the dragon as it chased. But the dragon was chained to the tower, and soon, the stablehand had taken the Princess far beyond its reach and back to his horse._

‘“ _She was alive, but only barely. If he could get her back to the castle, the stablehand was sure she could be saved, and so he rode hard, talking to her the entire way, making sure she was still alive. She told him that she loved him, that she was glad of all the knights in the realm that could have saved her, it was not them, but him. She spoke fondly of all the thoughts of their wedding, of having him in the deepest royal purple, for purple suited him, of wearing that green gown he liked so much. He responded to every thought, promised to wear purple for the rest of his life if she only survived._

‘“ _The Princess died in his arms on the ride home, and she was cold by the time he reached the palace. Grief-stricken, he could barely explain what had happened, and could only show them the place where the poison had struck her so truly._

‘“ _As broken-hearted as the Hero, the King pleaded with the gods that a curse be placed upon his head, that the stablehand should never forget what he had promised and failed to do, so that he should never forget the grief the King and the kingdom felt as they buried their only daughter. It was the end of the dynasty, for there were no other heirs, and the Princess’ mother had died in childbirth_.”’

Laura never heard how the story ended; she always fell asleep just then, just in time to hear of the terrible curse.

In the spring of Laura’s tenth year, her mother passed, taken from her husband and her children and her people by a sickness that she could not shake. Afterwards, Laura did not read the story, and she never opened a book of fairy tales again, putting them away in favour of treaties and laws the way her mother had. But she had heard the story so many times she sometimes, almost a decade later, still dreamt of the happy ending she never heard, of True Love surviving that the stablehand could marry his Princess in the most royal purple while she wore his favourite green gown.

It’s only now, after only an hour or so’s sleep that Laura finds herself in the library by candlelight, Lucky at her heel. Gabe had been on her door, and he follows her as he always does, and offers, several inches taller than her as he is, to lift down any book she cannot reach. She’s grateful for it, and even more grateful when he disappears down another aisle of books, humming to himself and leaving her to her armchair and her book of fairy tales.

She’s not so fanciful as to believe that the book still smells of her mother’s perfume, because it’s been sat on the shelf for ten years, and she doesn’t for a second believe that she’s tracing the shape of her mother’s fingerprints as she runs her fingers over the leather cover, tracing the embossing, the swirls of the letters stamped into the leather.

‘I miss you,’ she whispers to it, because she misses her mother like she’d miss a limb, and for all the distractions that the castle and this unavoidable adulthood has been providing her, not a day goes by where her bones do not ache for the want of the squeeze of Louise’s arms around her.

The book falls open to the same story about the dragon that it always does, and Laura breathes deep, stares at the grubby pages, where her little hands had patted the pages as a toddler, and the reverential sweep of her mother’s finger across each line as she read it aloud, helping Laura learn to read. Bedtime hadn’t been much of a time for lessons, but Laura doesn’t need to read the words now.

She still remembers them, clear as day, in her voice now, instead of her mother’s.

Lucky whines from by her feet, and she makes space for him to climb into the armchair with her, draping her legs over him so that he’s out of the way. She reads to him, quiet so as to not disturb Gabe’s reading in another aisle.

‘“ _As broken-hearted as the Hero_ ,”’ she reads, ‘“ _the King pleaded with the gods that a curse be placed upon his head, that the stablehand should never forget what he had promised and failed to do, so that he should never forget the grief the King and the kingdom felt as they buried their only daughter. It was the end of the dynasty, for there were no other heirs, and the Princess’ mother had died in childbirth_.”’

She stops there, and glances up; the sun has risen now, but it doesn’t break the heavy cloud blanketing the kingdom. The storm, for the most part, has passed, but the clouds remain.

‘What to do,’ she sighs, and rubs at one of Lucky’s tattered ears, smiling as the pup shudders the way he always does, ‘when the weather is so foul? We’ll have to take a walk around the garden; you’ve been getting lazy, old boy. We’ll go and see Miss Martinelli in the kitchen after, how about that? Get you some nice bones to gnaw, maybe even some fresh beef, does that sound like something you might like? Fresh beef? I know you like your steaks.’

Lucky, being the lazy old boy that he is, doesn’t much reply except to huff and open his one eye to peer at her.

‘I know,’ she sighs, and looks back at the book, page half-turned, ‘I spoil you too much.’

She turns the page, and frowns.

_The Body in the Pond_

It’s not what she expected to see. She had expected more to the story, had expected a happy ending to be found, a way for the curse to be reversed by True Love, or perhaps just a – a – some _resolution_. But that was it. The Princess was dead. The Hero was cursed. The kingdom had no other heirs. That was it. Done. The End.

She stares at the next story, one she’d had read to her once or twice, and took no interest in, and eventually she turns the page back, looks back over the story. Peggy had told her to read it, had said that it would give her clues, give her somewhere to begin.

But it’s just an empty, meaningless story. It’s nothingness in written form. There’s nothing to it beyond a tale to send little princesses to sleep. It’s not as if it’s based on any kind of –

Of –

‘Gabe?’ she calls, and sits on Lucky in her haste to get to her feet.

The dog protests with a loud whine, and she apologises, rushes around the aisle to almost bump into the pillar that is her Guardsman of the night.

‘Gabe, I need the records of all the births and deaths over the last centuries,’ she says, ‘where do I find them? Do we keep them here?’

‘No,’ Gabe says, shaking his head and frowning at the book clutched in her arms. ‘No, they’re kept in the parish churches. Why do you need them?’

‘I think I’ve – I think there’s a – I’m thinking,’ she says, and doesn’t explain any more. ‘I need to see Steve; I need you all to do something for me.’

 In the end, Steve tells her that he’s not sending the Guardsmen out on a foolish errand to collect every parish record in the kingdom.

‘What a waste of time,’ he says, ‘it’s a whim, Laura, and we have better things to do than that.’

‘Like sit around and interrupt me while I bathe?’ she snipes, and he levels her with a look that quietens her for several minutes.

Bucky offers her a sympathetic look, but he stood with his Captain, and she chooses to ignore him in favour of glaring at the wall while Natasha finishes braiding her hair for the day, pinning it with pretty little purple and white flowers.

* * *

She writes a letter to Monty as soon as she has a minute spare, and the reply comes back two days later telling her that he isn’t wasting his time collecting the parish records and sending them to her at the castle.

As soon as she sees his reply, so carefully written on his best paper and with his finest hand, she goes and punches Steve in the arm. With this steel body of his, she could have punched a wall and done more damage to it. Her knuckles ache all day, and he just has that smug look of victory on his face. If she wasn’t afraid of really hurting herself, she thinks she might punch him again.

* * *

As soon as Laura’s ankle is deemed fit and healthy by Sam, Laura is mounting her horse and heading for the woods.

Monty’s barely through the gate when Laura thunders past him, and he wheels his horse before Bucky and Steve are yelling at him to follow her, kicking his heels to take off back down the path.

‘Laura!’ he yells, but Laura can barely hear him over the sound of Duke’s hooves on the beaten dirt.

It doesn’t take long to get into the woods, and a mile in, she reigns the horse in, dismounting and knotting the reigns to a tree.

‘Stay,’ she tells the horse, stroking the white stripe down his nose. ‘Please. Be good for me.’

She presses a kiss to his face, and hikes her skirts, rushes off into the woods. She’s good on her feet, light and agile, a dancer by nature, and she skips over roots and branches and dips in the barely-there path.

‘Clint!’ she bellows, crashing through bushes. ‘Clint, answer me!’

She trips over a particularly well-hidden root and barely catches herself on her hands. There are nettles under her hand, and they sting, coming up in a rash almost immediately, but she ignores it, jumping to her feet and picking up her skirts to carry on, calling for the hunter once more.

‘I know you’re here!’ she calls, and slows to catch her breath.

She might be athletic enough to race the boys up and down the corridors, but she’s been lounging for six weeks, feeling sorry for herself, and for all Sam had declared her ankle healed, she doesn’t think this is the kind of exercise he had in mind for her to take.

‘Clint!’ she calls.

A rustle in the trees, and she whirls, staggers away from it and trips over her own feet, landing flat on her back. Winded, she struggles to right herself, staring at the trees.

She expects Monty to have caught up to her, furious as he ever is, ready to drag her back to the castle by the wrist, but the form that appears in the trees is not his.

‘Clint,’ she sighs, and the hunter laughs, steps over her to help her upright, grabbing her under the arms and lifting her like she weighs nothing.

Her feet leave the ground entirely before he’s setting her back on them, a little too close to be _proper_. He smells of leather and tea and sweat, and she’s never smelt anything nicer.

‘Hello,’ she says, and his eyes flash.

‘Hello,’ he replies. ‘I heard you calling for me.’

There’s a smudge of dirt on his cheek, and she finds herself licking her thumb to wipe it away. He catches her hand, and after a second, seems to decide that it’s not _that_ much of a threat, and lets her finish rubbing the dirt from his cheek. His skin is not _rough_ , but there is the roughness of stubble, of a man who hadn’t shaved for a day or so, and she finds herself smiling at the rasp of her skin against it.

‘You haven’t shaved,’ she says, because it would be odd for her to not mention it after making such a point of it.

‘No,’ he agrees, and holds her hand, presses it flat to his jaw. ‘Not for a few days.’

He hardly needs to; it’s not as though he needs to be presentable, for he hardly sees a soul.

‘You should,’ she says, ‘you are among royalty, sir. Have you no shame?’

It makes him laugh, and Laura’s heart does something uncomfortable and warm, a hot summer’s night spent tossing and turning and getting no rest at all for the sweat on her brow happening right between her lungs, and she smiles.

It’s a nice feeling, for all the discomfort, something that feels like a feeling she had many years ago, something that feels _right_. Like that warmth belongs in her chest, a blooming rose to the thorns of the sadness she hadn’t known she felt.

‘No,’ he laughs, and turns his face to kiss the base of her hand for a half-second, pulling away. ‘No shame at all.’

He keeps hold of her hand though, skin warm and labour-rough, and they stand there, at arm’s length, holding hands and watching each other.

‘Lead on,’ she says, because she doesn’t doubt that he has a thousand places he could show her that she would never find without him.

They walk through the woods for a long while that is not as long as it seems. She watches him as he winds her through the trees, turning back to help her over brambles and hidden ditches and treacherous roots, and catches smiles on his faces. Frowns too, but mostly the smallest, sweetest little smiles.

He’s beautiful, in ways she can’t describe, but she’s sure that Natasha would understand, or Miss Potts, or even Miss Martinelli. She makes a note to go see Doctor Ross, because the Lady would understand, she was sure. Doctor Banner, rumour had it, had been cursed once, cursed in a way only True Love could break it, and rumour would also have it that said Lady so attached to his hip, was not his True Love. Laura didn’t believe it for a second, because Doctor Banner didn’t stink of a curse the way Clint stinks of a curse. There was magic somewhere, she was sure, because he had those same sizzling, pins-and-needles fingertips, but she was sure it wasn’t a curse.

He was far too sensible to get himself cursed, anyway.

But regardless, Laura thinks that perhaps Doctor Ross might be able to offer some explanation or another, be able to tell Laura the words she cannot find to describe what seeing Clint smile does to her heart and her belly, so full of fluttering moths and butterflies and wriggling worms.

Overcome as she is once again to demand a kiss from him, or to demand that he take enough liberties to get himself arrested again by kissing _her_ , she has to pull her hand free.

‘Let me rest a moment,’ she says, when he turns back and stares, wide-eyed. ‘My ankle.’

Understanding whips across his eyes in a flicker of the stormiest, most lightning-saturated blue she’s seen outside of a storm, and he nods, takes her arms and guides her to a seat on a fallen log, sitting at her feet.

‘May I?’ he asks, and gestures at her foot.

‘It’s healed, so Sam says,’ she tells him.

‘Sam?’

‘Doctor Wilson,’ Laura explains, and obligingly lifts her foot so that Clint can ease her shoe off and press his fingers along the sprained arch of her foot. ‘He is our physician. We have four – no, no – truly, we have five. We have Sam, who works with injuries like these. I see him most. And we have Doctor Cho, she’s very lovely, but she’s very interested in bodies, and I do hope we don’t find her grave-robbing, because she’s very good at dealing with problems of the – the – of the _female_ persuasion.’

‘Bleeding, you mean,’ Clint says with the gruffness of a man who couldn’t care, his head bowed to focus on her ankle, but the tips of his ears are red. ‘I’m a man, not a mouse. I know what women do.’

Laura doesn’t think Clint knows what women do at all.

They fall silent, and after a few moments, Clint hums.

‘You said five,’ he says, and his eyes are shining like starlight again when he looks up at her.

‘Five?’

‘Physicians,’ he prompts. ‘You’ve told me about two.’

‘Oh! Yes, and then we have Doctor Banner, he is – he’s very strange, as doctors go. There was a story I used to hear when I was young, about how he was cursed, and his True Love saved him. That’s Doctor Ross, by the by. She works with him, as our – sickness physicians? When we are physically injured, we see Sam, but when there is anything else – headaches, and stomach aches and rashes – we go to see them. They’re really very good.’

Clint looks at her palm, red and lumpy with nettle rash as it is.

‘Dock leaves,’ he says, and leaps to his feet.

‘Pardon?’ Laura asks, spreading her hands. ‘Clint, where are you – ‘

But he’s already gone and before she’s got her shoe on to follow him, he’s back, a fistful of leaves in his hand.

‘Dock leaves,’ he repeats, and drops himself back onto his knees in front of her, reaching for her hand.

His ears are red, and his eyes are glowing, and his hand trembles when it takes hers, but he holds tight and scrunches the leaves up, rubs the mess across the worst of the rash.

‘It’ll take the sting out,’ he tells her, and keeps at it.

She marvels over it, watching the – well, the redness doesn’t go down, but there are less lumps in on her palm now, and the stinging is gone.

‘There,’ he says, when the leaves have fallen to pieces, and her skin is green for the sap on it, but he keeps rubbing at her palm with his thumb, broad, firm strokes that make that make the moths and butterflies and worms in her belly start up anew.

‘There,’ she echoes, quiet, and watches his face watching her hand.

When he looks up, they’re very close indeed. Too close, really, but too close is something that she’s sure she’ll have to get used to. For a moment, he lingers, and she’s halfway to raising her chin, angling her mouth to meet his, but then he’s jerking away, back towards her prettily pale ankle and away from her want for kisses.

‘Your ankle looks better,’ he says, ‘there’s almost no bruising now.’

Laura looks at it.

‘Sam said there wasn’t any bruising,’ she says.

‘There’s a little,’ he replies, draws a circle around a patch of skin on the arch of her foot that looks no different to the rest of it. ‘Just here. It’s faint, but it’s there.’

‘I don’t see anything.’

 Clint goes lobster-red and his eyes shine so ice-blue as to be white.

‘Oh,’ he says, and says no more.

He doesn’t keep touching her foot as he’d touched her palm, and he puts her shoe back on for her.

‘You should go,’ he says, and his head snaps up, eyes tight as he seems to listen. ‘Your – is that the Falsworth boy? He’s looking for you.’

‘I rode past him,’ she says, with what she hopes is a pretty flush. ‘He’ll be very cross with me, I’m sure.’

‘I'm sure,’ Clint snorts, and rises to his feet, grabs under her arms to haul her upright again before backing away. ‘Go. Before he catches up to you. I don’t want to get arrested again.’

She follows him when he tries to duck between the trees, grabs his wrist.

‘Wait,’ she says, and steps into him. ‘I need to ask you something, just before you go.’

Clint stares over her head, watching the trees, but he nods.

‘Ask away, I’ll answer if I can.’

‘Where were you born? What town?’

Clint’s eyes flick to herself, flaring white-blue again.

‘I was born in Waverley, but when I was – when I was nine, we moved to Lynne’s Brook, on the far side of Lower Town.’

She nods, and lets him go.

‘I’ll come back when I can,’ she promises, and like that he’s gone.

Monty comes thundering through the trees barely a minute later, looking like he’s about ready to actually shout at her, something that her favourite cousin has never yet dared to do. Mostly because his wife will then shout at him for being so ridiculous as to shout at the Princess in the first place, and he’s not nearly so daft.

‘What was that?’ he demands, and Laura shakes her head.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she says, ‘it doesn’t matter. I need to go to Lynne’s Brook.’

‘I will be dead before you do,’ he tells her, so matter of fact, and he puts a firm, fair hand on her back and starts steering her back towards where she’d tethered Duke.

‘Who’s parishioner of Lynne’s Brook?’ she asks Jim later, as he walks with her around the garden late in the evening, having spent the rest of the day in lectures with Steve and her father and brother, and it’s only now that she’s been able to take Lucky for a walk.

‘Lynne’s Brook? The Murdock kid, I think,’ Jim tells her, but he’s slouching and looking uninterested, at least until he straightens and waves a hand in front of his eyes. ‘You know, the blind one? He was cursed, or whatever.’

‘He was cursed,’ Laura agrees, and frowns, doesn’t say a word the rest of the evening.

When she returns to her chambers, she asks Natasha to fetch her a quill and some paper.

‘I want to write a letter,’ she says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> any questions/comments/screeching? hmu at vinnie2757 on tumblr!


	3. The Monster Under Your Bed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura begins to formulate a plan, but is stymied by lies, and a hated old friend returns.

Natasha hates being in Lower Town, hates it with a passion. Lower Town stinks and closes in around her and traps her in high walls and dark streets, and she hates it. Not to say that she’s vulnerable, because there isn’t an inch of her incapable of defending herself from anything any of Lower Town’s inhabitants could throw at her, but she hates it all the same. She hates being closed in.

There’s nowhere to run.

And if – if – no, she thinks, and turns a corner to put the cross back in front of her, no, she doesn’t need to consider that possibility any more, she doesn’t need to worry about that. Navigating her way through the city to the church has proven a little more difficult than when she last attempted it. But then, she supposes, side-stepping out of the way of a couple, rushing on their way to something important, bickering in that way family do, she hadn’t been in Lower Town since she first arrived in the city, ten years ago.

Dragons were fucking _dead_. They’d been dead for centuries; after the death of the Faulkner dynasty’s princess, the King had waged _war_ on the dragons, and hadn’t rested in body or soul until every last one was dead. The fact he’d obliterated the kingdom that had gotten his daughter killed and dragged it by the hair into his war, well. That was to be expected, the man had been driven mad by grief.

Natasha isn’t sure she believes it, but Laura is so besotted with this hunter of hers that Natasha can’t bear to see the illusion destroyed. She’d asked Sam, in one of those rare moments she had, where she dared to talk aloud about – well. She’d asked Sam, and Sam had traced patterns across her skin with his fingertips, considered every possible outcome of every possible situation.

In the end, he’d told her to keep her mouth shut.

‘Laura’s happy,’ he’d murmured, pressing their noses together, and she’d counted his eyelashes, the way his eyes shone like the sun when they caught the light. ‘Let her keep that happiness, at least for a while. Worry about him when he becomes an issue. You’ve found a better life here, Nat; don’t let it come undone because of that place.’

It is simultaneously both that simple and that hard. The Red Room had been her life for so long, for the first fourteen years, she had known nothing but. And now, safely wrapped up in Sam’s smiles and Laura’s hand in hers, able to fling herself on Captain Rogers’ back and tell him tales about what his boys are getting up to and hearing him laugh because of how outlandish (and true) her tales are – that is not what the Red Room was. That is not what she was taught. She has not yet outweighed her time there with her time in the Princess’ service, but it’s getting close. It’s been ten years, but is that enough to undo what her formative years had taught her?

She stands on a crossing and waits for a lull safe enough to cross.

Could she kill him, if it came down to it? The Red Room had tried for over two centuries to kill the Barton boy, and she isn’t nearly so foolish as to truly believe that if it came to it, she could. Of course she couldn’t; she heard the story of Saint Paul’s. She heard that story a thousand times. An entire village burned until not even the ashes of the foundations remained.

Oh, she’d heard that story. Cornering him was a poor attempt at an idea, but could she use Laura to get to him? Could she do that? She didn’t answer to York’s laws, and the Red Room would hide her, if it came to sacrificing another princess to kill the bastard once and for all. They’d defend her.

But could she do that?

It wasn’t the time to think about that; perhaps it would never come to it in her lifetime. Perhaps Laura would never find him again, and he’d stay in his hidden little corner of the woods and she’d never have to worry about him again. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

The Church that Laura has sent her to is on the far side of Lower Town, and Natasha trots across the road, hiking her skirt out of the dirt as she crosses the cobbles. The streets should be swept clean on a daily basis, but she doubts for not even half a second that there has been hide nor hair of a broom on these streets for some months. It’s a shame, but Lower Town’s had a reputation for a century or more for being _filth_.

It’s an unassuming sort of building, quiet and out of the way, with short, squat spires and broad, bent crosses. The fact that the iron of the cross has bent, the gilt worn away, it says much for the state of the interior.

Supposedly, from what Natasha’s gleaned over the last ten years, this is where Barton goes to confess, where he will spend weeks in penance every time there is an _incident_. Natasha has tried to catch him before now, to see what it is exactly she has been sent to put out of its misery, but Barton can be elusive at the best of times, and impossible at the worst. And Murdock, sweet, guileless Murdock, he’d defend the monster to his grave.

These cursed sorts have to stay close, she supposes, and hop-skip-jumps up the steps to push the great mahogany doors apart to slip inside.

There’s a chill inside the church, cool stone and cooled fires, and she stares up at the rainbow splashed across the nave through the stained glass. For a second or three, she marvels at it; it is, after all, a nice view.

‘Hello.’

She starts, and wrenches her eyes down from the sparkling ceiling to the Reverend stood at the far end of the aisle, hands clasped and head tilted.

‘Hello,’ she says, and clutches the letter tighter. ‘I’m looking for Father Murdock; I have a letter for him.’

‘I’m Father Murdock,’ the Reverend says, and he smiles. ‘But I am afraid – I cannot read a letter, Miss. I’m well-known to be blind.’

‘And you are well-known to be cursed,’ Natasha replies, and lifts her skirt enough to stride down the aisle to him. ‘I do not believe for a second, Murdock, that your blindness in any way stops you from seeing a thing.’

Murdock tilts his head, eyebrows knotting. There’s something vague in his eyes, something that sees through her, and she wonders, for half a second, if perhaps she is wrong. But then his gaze settles on her, and she feels her lips curl.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘I think perhaps I’d be wise to do my best. Follow me, Miss Romanov; we’ll go to my office.’

As he leads her through a door and down a set of steps, she asks how he knew who she was.

‘The only Miss with hair like fire that smells of honey and vanilla is the Princess’ Lady-in-Waiting,’ he tells her, ‘I may not see you clearly, or at all, but I can recognise the smell of the Princess’ favoured soap.’

 Natasha eyes the back of Murdock’s head, his hair sticking up in five different directions, and then ducks her head, tries to surreptitiously smell herself. As Murdock turns back to gesture her through the door he’s holding open for her, a smile crosses his face.

‘I promise,’ he says, ‘you smell lovely. My other senses are – stronger, for the lack of sight. A seeing man would be too distracted with your beauty to notice how you smell.’

‘I thought priests were supposed to be chaste, but you talk as though you know your way around women, Father.’

But the smile on her mouth is audible in her voice, and Murdock’s smile broadens until he’s chuckling, soft.

‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ he says, and Natasha has not spent ten years watching Laura flounder to not recognise lies when she sees them.

They sit and he offers her water, for he’s afraid he has no tea made, and Natasha offers to make some for him. He accepts, graciously so, and once the drinks are on his desk, they sit and Natasha slides the envelope across to him.

‘Do you know its contents?’ he asks, and she nods.

‘Of course I do,’ she says. ‘I was made to proof-read it before being sent here.’

Murdock hums.

‘Then read it to me,’ he says, ‘if you would be so kind.’

That was not what Natasha was told to do, but she finds herself reaching over the table to take the envelope back all the same, slipping a finger under the seal to unfold the letter and clear her throat as quietly as she can.

_To my dearest Reverend,_

_You’ll find this letter in the hands of my Lady-in-Waiting, Miss Romanov. She’s a fiery sort – do try not to cross her if you can! She is not mean by any measure, but she does very rarely approve of duplicity, and you’ll find yourself coming unstuck should she be played the fool._

_I write to you entirely for my own selfish ends; I require information, and I should like to meet you to discuss the records of your parish over the past three centuries; in particular, those of Lynne’s Brook. This is a vague and lengthy request, I know, but I wish to examine the records for a name all the same. I understand that three hundred years is such a length of time that it is unlikely you will be able to deliver the records to me at the castle, and I am sure you should not make it that far, for I am being stymied by the Queen’s Guard._

_And so I propose a meeting that I might get the information I need without you having to come to the castle; on the fourteenth, I will be waiting at the tavern you and Mister Nelson frequent, at precisely seven in the evening._

_I shall wait only for thirty minutes before leaving, so do please hurry._

_Yours,_

_Laura_

She’s signed the letter in her most royal and inconvenient way, with the curling, looping L and the dozen swirls and curls of the underlining. It’s her official signature, the one designed to be deterrence to forgery, and Natasha remembers spending the better part of a week watching Laura try out variations when she was barely in double digits, trying to find the signature that best defined _her_. It had been a nauseating week of paper shoved in her face and Laura’s tongue stuck between her teeth, and Natasha had been glad to see the back of it.

Murdock has a smile on his face when Natasha looks up from her Lady’s missive.

‘Does she know where she’s going?’ he asks. ‘That tavern is not one for young ladies, especially not royal ones.’

‘I told her,’ Natasha says, and folds the letter back up, putting it on the table. ‘I explained to her the rumours surrounding that place, but she insisted. I tried to convince her to go to the _Three Roads_ instead, but she won’t listen to a word of it.’

‘No,’ Murdock sighs, and ruffles his hair with a wayward hand through it. A lock curls handsomely against his temple, and Natasha wonders if the Ladies like him. ‘No, I suppose she wouldn’t.’

They sit there drinking their tea in silence and finally, Natasha says, ‘am I to assume you are accepting her request to meet?’

 Murdock looks into his cup as though he can see whatever is at the bottom.

‘Yes,’ he says with a soft nod. ‘Yes, I believe so. The fourteenth at seven. I shall endeavour to be there. Three hundred years of parish records for one name, though – that is – it’s interesting. I could search the records myself, if she gave me the name, and then she’d never have to go to the tavern at all.’

‘That isn’t her way,’ Natasha says, and Murdock nods.

‘I suppose so,’ he agrees. ‘I’ll – tell her I shall meet her as she requests.’

Natasha nods, and rises, dusting her skirt off. She leaves the church feeling – feeling – she is not sure how she feels. The tavern has a reputation, which is why, she supposes, that Murdock ended up there. If her information is not horribly outdated, she thinks that Barton has also frequented the establishment over the past three centuries, because if there is any truth to any of the rumours getting whispered past her ears, the tavern is a haven for the cursed. Legend has it that it stands on an old abbey of some sort or another, and it’s haunted by the memory of the mercenaries who defended it against some invaders or another.

As she makes her way back to the carriage waiting to take her back to the castle, she thinks to herself that the legend is probably as nonsensical as the fairy tale Laura’s been reading nonstop the past weeks. Time has a way of warping everything, and Natasha has not spent ten years unlearning all the lies the Red Room told her in order to fall prey to the belief of fairy tales.

The carriage waits, with its driver napping behind the brim of his hat, but he startles upright at the sound of her clearing her throat.

‘Ah, Miss Romanov! There you are! Are you ready to return?’

‘Yes, Mister Jarvis, if you’d be so kind.’

She waves him away from climbing down to help her into the carriage, and she stares out of the window the entire ride back, watching the woods flicker past her, and she wonders if Barton is watching her back, able to smell her. She wonders if he’s curious as to why the Princess’ Lady-in-Waiting is going into Lower Town by herself; it’s not proper, for a Lady to be out and about by herself. It’s not done, that’s not. So she sits there hoping to catch a glimpse of him through the trees, and wishes she had a knife strapped to her calf like the Red Room taught her.

But all she has is the itch of a bug bite and the faint tickle of Lucky’s cold nose in the back of her bare knee first thing this morning.

* * *

After Miss Romanov is gone, Matthew hurtles from his chair, snatches up the letter, and grabs his cane. He doesn’t need it, not really; the splashing pattern of curses spreading across Lower Town paints enough of a picture that he might as well not be blind at all. The world might be on fire, in varying shades of blue and red and white, in places, where Mister Wilson still lingers, lurking in what Matthew thinks must be dark corners and in heavy crowds, but he sees the world. He sees every uneven cobble and he sees the black, burning shadows of carriages and people and their curious, disapproving stares as he knocks their shins with his cane.

Sometimes he even remembers to apologise.

He pauses mid-stride, halfway down an alleyway, and considers where, exactly, he’s intending to go. Does he go to Miss Temple, who is quickly becoming _Claire_ , and ask her advice? Or does he go to Foggy and to Miss Page, who will laugh at his harried expression, but will read the letter in all seriousness and offer him advice? He hesitates just long enough that the decision is made for him.

‘Matthew?’

‘Clint!’ he exclaims, and hates that this fiery realm he inhabits does not allow him to see out the back of his head.

He wheels, and the monster flares against the sky before settling, thrashing and writhing and hating itself, into the vague shape of Clint Barton, broad shoulders and ice-blue eyes, wide with amused curiosity. Anybody greeting the hunter with anything other than disdain always surprises him, and if Matthew had the time, he thinks that might make him sad. But for now he’s rushing forward to grab Clint’s arm.

‘She’s worked it out,’ he says, but the words come out too fast, and Clint’s fire flares before settling back to freezing embers.

‘Who?’

‘The Pr – _Laura_ ,’ he corrects, apologetic, Clint’s scowl enough. ‘She wrote me a letter, asking to meet at Josie’s tavern, to discuss parish records. She wishes to look for a name in the last three hundred years. She knows, or at the least, she suspects.’

Clint shakes his head. ‘The records lie, I’ve seen them. I was there when they were written. The records won’t tell her anything.’

‘She’s not stupid,’ Matthew protests. ‘They say she’s as sharp as a nail. That she’s got her mother’s intellect, and Louise was – she was – she was good. If anyone could – Clint, she could _break_ the curse.’

Clint scoffs and shakes his head again, fire spilling across his shoulders. ‘Don’t start preaching, Mattie. I’ve had the same speech off Wade this very morning, and God only knows how he got the information.’

‘Mister Wilson has his ways,’ Matthew replies, and then wrinkles his nose. ‘Don’t call me Mattie.’

Clint shrugs again and the fire ripples down his arms, flaring the bluest that Matthew’s seen it in months.

It’s been a long time since Clint has been in such a state that the dragon won’t rest easy against his skin, but there is a part of Matthew that thinks that perhaps there is something more to his agitation than just –

‘You haven’t been by the church lately,’ he says, and Clint rubs at his neck.

‘Well, I have,’ he says, ‘I was just there, but you weren’t, so what’s the point in staying? I can’t exactly tell Lantom about, well, any of this.’

‘You came to find me?’

‘It’s not hard to find you,’ Clint replies, and then he laughs. ‘Although, I’d best admit that I saw Lantom first, and he asked me to find you. He said that you had a visitor and you’d left in quite the hurry.’

Matthew becomes aware that he’s clutching the letter in his hand, and extends it to Clint, telling him what it is.

‘Reverend, please,’ Clint says, and looks at the letter, and then at him, nose wrinkled. ‘You know I can’t read. Well, she tried to teach me, before she – before she – when there was time to teach me. But the words all jumble up and don’t make any sense and I stopped trying after the cur – well, you know.’

Matthew does know.

‘I know,’ he assures the other man, ‘believe me, I know. I was going to go and see – see – I hadn’t decided who I was going to see.’

‘No one,’ Clint says, and presses a burning hand to Matthew’s arm, steering him back towards the church. ‘You aren’t going to see anyone. You’re going to go back to the church.’

Matthew sighs, and smacks Clint in the shins with his cane as he passes.

Clint trails along behind him back to the church, where he passes Matthew back into Lantom’s supervision, and then he waits until Lantom’s gone to make them all some tea before something clicks in the quiet corner of his mind reserved for such revelatory thoughts.

‘The girl said she wanted to meet you at the tavern?’ he asks, and Matthew, all but sulking in the corner, nods.

‘She wants the records that will prove you’re the same as the fairy tale.’

‘And you’re planning on meeting her?’

‘Yes, of course. If she can _break_ your curse, Clint, for heaven’s sake, I’m not going to deny you that chance!’

‘Just knowing I’m three hundred years old and responsible for the collapse of the Faulkner dynasty isn’t enough,’ Clint says, and then laughs, bitter and pained. ‘She’d have to fall in love with me, too, and if she’s smart like you say, she’s not stupid enough to do that.’

‘Too?’ Matthew asks, eyes narrowing as the dragon glares back, snarling and spitting. ‘You said “too,” as if you’re already in love with her.’

Clint shakes his head, and Matthew heaves a sigh. Talking to Clint is like talking to a brick wall some days, and Matthew’s sure he’d get better answers from his echo coming back to him from the bottom of a well than he does from the dragon some days.

 Eventually, after a stagnant pause that stinks of green water and dead fish, Clint says, ‘you know Wade will be there, don’t you? He already knows about the letter, which means he’ll know about the meeting, and he’ll be there.’

‘He’s entitled to be there,’ Matthew says, as gentle and placid as ever. ‘As far as I know, Josie hasn’t banned him yet.’

‘She needs to. Just – be careful, okay? Wade can be – boisterous. I don’t want her to get hurt because of him.’

The dragon flares against the walls of the church for a second, a firestorm of the palest blue, and Matthew averts his eyes as best he can until it’s settled. Clint’s features are a burning apology, but Matthew has heard the words from his mouth often enough to not need to hear them again.

Lantom returns with tea, but Clint takes his leave, and slinks off back to the outskirts of Lower Town, lingering in the woods when he sees the wheel-tracks of a carriage. He breathes the smell of honey and vanilla and shakes it from his skin when it threatens to settle there.

* * *

‘Laura?’

Laura frowns, clutches her cloak tighter about her. She’s startlingly aware of how alone she is here, how, as far as the Guard are concerned, she is asleep in her bed, exhausted enough to retire early, how there is no one to rescue her.

‘Who’s asking?’ she asks, eyes the face peering at her.

It’s handsome, with neatly-combed dark hair and pale skin, poorly shaved with a bruise at the corner of his eye, the pair of which stare off into the middle-distance like they’re looking at something no-one else can see.

‘My name is Matthew Murdock,’ he says.

Laura straightens, loosens the grip on her cloak, and breathes a little easier.

‘Reverend,’ she says, sighs. ‘I was worried you wouldn’t come.’

He feels for the seat next to her, eyes still somewhere over her shoulder, and she watches him ease into it. The table is barely out of the way, but the noise of the room drowns them out well enough that no one will be listening in.

‘I got your letter,’ Reverend Murdock says, and picks at a scab on his hand. ‘You’ll have to come to the Church; I can’t get the records out of the library.’

She nods; she’d figured that would be case, because there must be too many names to fill a small, easily-portable book.

‘Can we go now? Is the Church open?’

Reverend Murdock nods, and then shakes his head to the pretty waitress with the hiked skirts and low blouse before the girl even opens her mouth. Laura smiles politely up at her until she’s gone, and feels the bewilderment spreading across her face when she turns back to the priest next to her.

‘How did you know she was there?’

‘I’m blind,’ he says, ‘not deaf. Your Highness, I have to – ‘

He pauses, and stares over her shoulder. Laura doesn’t need to look to know what he’s staring at, and is so aware of it that she doesn’t think it’s strange that Reverend Murdock is staring at all. There’s a man sat in the corner of the tavern, his feet up on the table before him, boots crossed at the ankle and black with peat and water stained with his hood pulled low over his face. It had been strange, seeing him with his hood up when he had three empty tankards by his shins, but Laura had been aware of her own hood, pulled forward enough to cast her face into shadow, and she knew she shouldn’t judge him for it.

This tavern was haven to all sorts of secret sorts, all those who didn’t wish to be seen here, or seen at all, but she is so aware of her own misdeeds, her own ploys, that she cannot help but wonder at everyone else’s. He was the only other person with their hood up in the tavern, and had been since she arrived, at which point he’d already been settled in his seat, as though he’d been there all evening, and it didn’t take long for his eyes to settle on the back of her head, lingering there without pause.

He was watching her, and she had no true idea how to respond to it, except to pretend like she hadn’t noticed.

But the Reverend was watching the man back, and he shakes his head, so subtly Laura almost doesn’t notice it, and in truth wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t been trained from birth to recognise the barely-there cues of her Lady-in-Waiting and her staff, guiding her in diplomacy with increasingly-subtle gestures.

Slowly, the prickling at her neck fades as the man looks away, and Laura breathes easy for the first time in the half-hour she’s been sat there.

The Reverend’s eyes turn back to her with a soft smile, but they still don’t look like they’re really looking at her. Laura smiles politely in return.

‘What were you going to say?’ she asks, ‘before you paused?’

Reverend Murdock frowns for a second, and then shakes his head, and apologises, says, ‘I’ve completely forgotten, I’m afraid. But I think it best we leave now, if you wish to see the records.’

Laura does wish to see the records, so she downs the last of her ale, and gets to her feet, waiting for Reverend Murdock to ease himself out of his chair and swish his cane.

‘Would you mind leading me back to the door?’ he asks, ‘I’m all turned around.’

Laura takes his hand and guides him back to the door, at which point he’s back on track and can lead her to the church. In the moonlight, it looks ominous, the cross bent and warped in front of the moon, and the stained glass picked out in colourless relief. She takes a breath at the sight of it; her church, the one on the castle grounds with the priest she’s known since birth, who had christened her and had listened to all of her tantrums after her mother’s passing, who had sat with her for hours and hours at every one of her crises of faith over the past nineteen years. Compared to this, her church was a warm, bright building of boundless colour and familiar myrrh.

‘Shall we?’ she asks, and the Reverend nods, swishes his cane and bumps his way up the steps to the door.

It screeches as he opens it, and she winces at how loud it echoes.

‘Father Lantom knows that you’re here,’ he says, quiet, and eases the door shut behind her.

Laura throws her hood back and looks in awe at the nave as the Reverend pads off down the aisle, so familiar with the building he forgoes using his cane.

‘Follow me, the library is through the office.’

Laura swallows thickly, and hurries after him. It doesn’t take long to reach the library, a cold room that makes her shiver, smelling of old books and lit only by stubs of fat candles. She stares at the rows upon rows of books bound to their shelves by chains, and she feels her fingers itch. Her library – because the castle’s library had, in the years following her birth, become hers in a way no other room of the castle not her bedchamber was – was expansive, stretching for two dozen aisles twice the height of her, but this enclosed space, with its handful of aisles and wall-to-wall shelves, it contained so much knowledge.

‘I’ve already pulled out the relevant records,’ the Reverend whispers, and leads her to a table on the far side of the room, where a robed man sits, already looking through a book, finger brushing down a column of neat caligraphy.

Father Lantom, Laura reasons, because they are the only priests in this little church.

‘Good evening, Your Highness,’ he says, and Laura gives him a soft curtsy.

‘Good evening, Father. I’m sorry to impose on you so late in the evening.’

‘It is not that late,’ he says, gracious. ‘Take a seat, and we’ll get started. Have you the name you wish to search for?’

‘It’s – I’m looking for Clint Barton,’ she says.

‘Clint Barton?’ Murdock is not very good at feigning surprise, but he tries all the same.

‘You know him,’ Laura says, because it isn’t a question.

‘I do.’

‘He said he moved to Lynne’s Brooke when he was nine,’ Laura says, and Lantom hums.

‘But you’re looking through three hundred years of records?’ he asks.

Rubbing at her neck, Laura nods, and watches Murdock staring off into space again.

‘Yes, I – I have reason to believe he’s cursed, and if I’m right, he may be close to three hundred years old.’

Lantom frowns, and looks to Murdock.

‘Matthew? You knew of this?’

Murdock nods. ‘I did know, Father. Clint is – it doesn’t matter. We’ll discuss it later. I want her Highness to find what she’s looking for so she can return to the castle faster. The longer she’s here, the more danger she is in.’

Lantom wrinkles his old nose, and nods.

‘Quite right. Clint Barton, an uncommon name. It shouldn’t take too long to find him.’

They search all of the records, but Laura finds no variation of the name. There are no Bartons listed anywhere in any of the books, and she purses her lips as she reaches the end of the last.

‘Nothing!’ she crows. ‘No sign of him at all! How peculiar that he would lie to me about his parish.’

 ‘You are not much of a liar, Your Highness,’ Lantom says, and gets something like a smile on his features. ‘Murdock is not much of a liar either. Is there anything I should be aware of?’

‘No, Father, not at all. It was just a theory, you understand. I thought perhaps I might get some clue as to – he’s under a curse, and I was hoping I might understand it a bit more, if I understood where his curse began.’

‘You think he might be three hundred years old?’ Lantom asks.

‘I have heard stories of curses lasting indefinitely,’ she replies, and shuts the book, getting to her feet to start putting them away. ‘I thought perhaps he might be older than he looks.’

‘And you’re certain it is three hundred years?’

‘I am fairly positive. I could be wrong. It’s been known to happen.’

It gets a chuckle from both clergymen, and Lantom picks up another of the books, guides her to their home, and they make short work of putting the records back where they belong.

As Murdock walks her back to the doors, he asks how she plans to return to the castle.

‘I have a carriage waiting for me,’ she says, ‘being driven by my Lady-in-Waiting. She’s very good at disguise.’

‘A Lady of many talents.’

Laura smiles and nods.

At the door, she takes Murdock’s hand in both her own, squeezing gently.

‘Thank you,’ she says, ‘for meeting me, for helping me disprove my theory.’

‘You think he’s lying?’

‘I think the records are lying,’ she admits, ‘I am _sure_ I understand the origin of his curse, and all I need is proof of it.’

‘Do you?’ Murdock asks. ‘Do you need proof to break the curse? That is what you intend, isn’t it? To break the curse?’

‘I thought curses could only be broken by True Love,’ Laura says with a smile, feels the sadness of it aching in her dimples, and she finds herself glad that Murdock cannot see it.

‘There are many ways to break curses,’ Murdock says, and squeezes the hand she has under his palm. ‘Do you want me to walk you to your carriage?’

‘No, no it’s fine. Thank you, Reverend. I appreciate the concern, but I am well-disguised.’

‘Don’t forget to put your hood up.’

It’s only after she’s halfway down the street, holding the hood low over her face that she realises that there was no way for Murdock to know she’d been wearing a hood at all, let alone that she’d lowered it on entering the church.

Frowning, she feels the weight of eyes on her neck again, the same eyes from the tavern, and she hurries to the carriage, where Natasha is waiting, a picture-perfect driver.

‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ Natasha asks.

‘No. There’s something missing. Something’s not right.’

‘I see. Shall we head home? There is a long ride ahead, and the Captain will be getting ready to change the guard.’

‘We’d best hurry.’

Laura rushes through the servant’s pass back to her bedchamber as soon as they’re there, and Natasha hurries through the main corridors to take some of the distraction away. Pulling off her cloak and shoving it under her bed, Laura throws her covers aside, diving into bed. She’s just barely got her breath back and is feigning sleep when Steve opens the door to check on her.

Several minutes later, Natasha enters through her hidden door, and helps Laura ready for bed.

‘You’ll work it out,’ she assures the Princess, when she sees the mulish expression on her face as Natasha undoes her braids. ‘You’re stubborn, and you’re smart. You’ll work it out.’

‘I hope so,’ Laura sighs. ‘He is too nice to be cursed.’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Natasha says, ‘and remember, I have an errand from Commander Fury to run tonight, so I won’t be here until late. If you need anything, you’ll have to call for Steve or Gabe.’

‘I will. I don’t like Fury taking you away.’

‘I’ll be back before you know it.’

She lies in bed for an hour after Natasha is gone, and stares at the view from her window. It’s quiet, save Lucky’s snoring, and Laura revels in the quiet, thinking about Clint and what the discovery means before finally rolling away from the view and closing her eyes.

* * *

Clint stirs, briefly, from a slumber he hadn’t realised he’d fallen into to the sound of counting, and glances across the room. A hunched figure, sat at the table, laying out coloured ribbons wound around clothes-pegs from a box beside the rows. In the moonlight filtering through window in leaf-patterned spots, the colours are bleached grey, and he can barely pick out the pinks and greens and blues of the ribbons before his eyes shut again.

‘Forty-three, forty-four, forty – forty – forty-five, _thank you very much_.’

He listens for half a second longer and then tunes out, falls back into slumber, back into the blackness of sleep.

A minute later he jerks awake and upright, lungs squeezing tight and heart already halfway out of his mouth on the tail-end of stinking curses.

‘One-hundred-and-seven, one-hundred-and – oh, do shut up, Barton, I’m going to lose count – eight. One-hundred-and-nine. One-hundred-and-ten, eleven, and – _twelve_. One-hundred-and- _twelve_. You have been busy.’

Clint is aware that he is naked and unarmed and standing there gaping like a landed fish. Grabbing a blanket to preserve modesty would be a wasted effort, so he doesn’t waste the effort, and he continues to stand there, but he snaps his jaws shut, pushes his shoulders back and his chin up, fists clenched tight at his sides.

‘One-hundred-and-twelve. Goodness _gracious_. I am – impressed, I think. I’m impressed.’

Clint hasn’t laid the ribbons out for almost two centuries, hasn’t counted them since he first began winding them around the clothes-pegs, when he realised he had too many to just leave them tangled together in the box, and he swallows thickly at the sight of them so starkly lain out. Over a hundred of them, in neat little rows, arranged by colour, and the oldest are faded to off-white, the most recent vibrant and speckled with ash, with blood.

Seeing them like that makes his bones ache, his blood cold. The dragon claws at his skin, and his back itches, a sure sign the scales are starting to press.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asks, ‘what are you _doing_ here?’

He’s shorter than the figure on the other side of the room by a good head or so, and standing straight doesn’t get him much further than posturing, but he finds himself standing straight all the same. He cannot afford to show weakness, he _cannot_ afford it. Weakness has cost him dearly.

‘Still so bold,’ the figure laughs, that laugh that is not much a laugh as it is nails scratching against the slate of Clint’s spine, raising snow-cold shivers in its wake. ‘After all these centuries, and you still stand there, bold as brass.’

‘Tell me what you want,’ Clint demands, and strides across the space between them even though his bones are screaming to flee, to run in any other direction than forwards. ‘Tell me why you’re here. There’s nothing left for you to take.’

A smile stretches across that blue face, warping the ridges on its cheeks, and the teeth shine too brightly in the moonlight. Leering as it leans in, their noses brush, and Clint’s heart skips, his lungs seizing with the cold that is suddenly there, where it wasn’t before, and where it permeates everything the way it always does.

‘There is _plenty_ left to take, Barton.’

Clint finds himself thinking of Laura, of her golden eyes and the loose curls of her hair, falling free of its braids, the softness of her hands and the warmth of her skin. He thinks of her smile, and the ache of the scales increases, ripping through him as they pierce through his skin, tearing it apart to take over. There is blood, because there is always blood, but Clint has bled on this floor so many times that it hardly makes a difference. He’ll scrub the wood clean in the morning, when he is back to himself and able to see the shapes his feet are leaving in the grain more clearly.

‘Oh dear, oh dear, there’s another Princess,’ the figure laughs, and the pressure in Clint’s head continues to build, localising in his temples the way it always does when the dragon is closer to the surface than normal.

It’s been a long time since he lost control enough to get horns, but this fucker – just his presence was setting his blood to the freezing boil he’d felt to barely any degree when he first laid eyes on Laura in that clearing, cursing her ankle.

‘Haven’t you _learnt_ , Barton? There is _so_ much for you to lose,’ the figure continues, and presses their foreheads together.

‘Get out of my house,’ Clint says, but his voice is tight, his throat closed about the words until it’s all he can do to force them out.

There is no laughter this time, just the cold silence of a threat acknowledged.

‘Your house?’

‘My house. And I want you out of it.’

More laughter, and a push of heads that sends Clint staggering back a few steps until his balance returns. The pressure in his head blinds him and then eases, gives him vision so much sharper than he had even around Laura, sharper to the point of picking out every strand of hair catching the light, every grain of wood in the table, every speck of dust in the air. It’s painful, seeing so clearly, but the appearance of his horns have relieved some of the pressure at the very least. It’s sad, he thinks, that that means anything at all, let alone that it is the sole relief he has.

‘You cannot get me out of this house, Barton,’ the figure snorts, ‘I am much a part of it as that old fustylugs is.’

‘Nobody says that anymore,’ Clint snarls, throwing the words out between his fangs. ‘And you dare talk of Peggy like that again, I swear to the heavens, I’ll - ‘

‘You’ll what, Barton? Try to kill me? You’ve tried that before, or did you forget in your old age? You tried so very hard indeed, and you failed. Like you failed to save the girl. Oh, what a sight you made, carrying her in your arms that night! And her father was _so_ desperate to see you hurt in return. He would be proud, don’t you think?’

‘Shut up,’ Clint spits, ‘just shut up, be quiet. Get out.’

‘You can’t even say my name, how will you make me?’

It’s an unfortunate truth, but a truth nonetheless.

Clutching at his head, Clint leans against the wall and stares at his feet, with their forming claws and hip-high scales. It’s the closest he’s come to turning in almost half a century, and his breathing is shallow enough to be non-existent.

When he finally regains his breath, when he finally has enough control to look up from the floor, from the monstrous claws he’s found himself with, he finds himself alone. The figure is gone, and there are no signs he was ever there at all, except for the neatly laid out rows of one-hundred-and-twelve ribbons wound around clothes-pegs. He catches sight of his reflection in the window in front of him, behind the table and silver with moonlight.

Blood is streaked down his face, scabbing over where the horns had ripped through his temples. The wounds will be gone by dawn, with only the blood as evidence they were ever there. The same went for the blood streaked over his shoulders and neck, where the scales had retracted, retreating to that nether-space just under his skin where the dragon always seemed to lurk. With his eyes still shining blue, and his breath still fogging with the chill of _him_ in his lungs, Clint knows he looks like he’s been – he’s been. Murdering, perhaps. Sacrificing animals for some heathen deity. Matthew would be proud of him, in some roundabout way or another.

He gives his face a half-hearted scrub and merely smears the blood across his palms before going to put the ribbons back in their box. He tries not to linger over any of them, but each one brings with it the face of the girl who’d worn it, and he recalls each and every one with the same clarity he remembers Laura’s face.

With a sigh, he sets the last, most recent ribbon back in the box, and stands there for several long moments before shutting the lid. Picking the box up, he returns to his bed, putting it back where it belonged, under his bed in the far corner, where it was hardest to get to it. He’ll have to find a better place to hide it, now that _he’s_ back on the scene. Bastard.

‘Peggy?’ he calls, and doesn’t expect an answer. ‘Keep an eye on the girl. Please. Keep her safe for me. From me.’

He curls back up in bed, even though he knows he’s getting the sheets bloody and he’ll get no sleep, and stares at the wall. His throat itches.

‘Keep her safe from me.’

* * *

Laura is used to having the boys come in and check on her throughout the night, and is used to Natasha sneaking about, so at first, she doesn’t wake at the presence in her room. Her dreaming self assumes it’s either Steve or Gabe, who are on the doors tonight, because the presence is big, towering and the cold of it is unfamiliar, but the skies are clear, and perhaps there’s a frost creeping it. It is spring, still, however warm it’s been, and frost is not uncommon.

So she rolls over, still dreaming, and ignores the presence.

Lucky’s breath hits her hand, and she moves it to his head, rubs at his ear.

She startles awake some time later to the sound of Lucky snarling, and she rubs her face, sits up, finding the dog standing at the foot of her bed, shoulders down as he bares his teeth and growls at the balcony doors. It’s baffling, and Laura moves to kneel next to him, trying to see what he sees as she rubs his back, but there’s nothing there.

After a minute of trying to calm the dog with hands and words both, she glances over to the main doors, where she knows Steve and Gabe are currently standing on guard duty. She could call them, but what then? They’d come bursting in and making a fuss when there’s absolutely no need for any of it. So really, really, she should just scratch behind Lucky’s ears until he calms down and goes back to sleep. And she tries to do that, truly she does.

But then the balcony doors burst open and she screams.

‘Princess!’ Steve yells, but he sounds distant, like he’s so very far away and not just the other side of the doors not ten feet from her bed.

The door rattles, but doesn’t open. A loud bang, and Laura flinches, but doesn’t look away from the open balcony doors, staring into the foggy, shadowy space swirling in the threshold and getting darker by the second.

‘I’m going to keep trying the door,’ Steve is saying in his best Captain-of-the-Queen’s-Guard-voice.

If there weren’t a silhouette forming in the balcony doorway, horned and looming and coming closer, Laura might be comforted. Steve had been made Captain of the Queen’s Guard for a reason, after all.

‘Go get Buck and Monty; I want them over the wall and on the balcony in two minutes. Send Dugan my way. You take Jacques and Jim, and go through the servant’s pass. Kick the servant’s door down if you have to.’

‘Roger that.’

Another rattle of the door and Steve yells to her.

‘Princess! Are you alright? Answer me!’

She’s transfixed by the monster now at the foot of her bed and barely inches from her, blue and devilish, in dark robes with a horned helm atop his head, and the blue he glows is the same blue as Clint’s eyes, icy and burning white hot. But it isn’t as warm as Clint’s eyes, not as contrite. It’s cold, calculating, watching her and weighing her up like he’s debating whether it’s worth killing her or keeping her alive. His eyes are shining red, the fresh crimson red of apples and wine and blood, and she maintains eye contact as best she can, determined, _determined_ , not to lose this staring contest.

The monster doesn’t break eye contact, and she struggles not to blink.

She opens her mouth to scream again, but no sound comes out, and she’s left kneeling on her bed with Lucky barking without making a sound. Suddenly, the room is so silent, as though time itself has stopped, and she’s existing in the space between one second and the next. The monster is close enough that she can smell sweet cakes and sugar and everything nice on his breath, and the rotten stink of dead bodies, the icy emptiness of bodies left out in the snow, and she tries to make a sound, to scream, or beg for mercy, or anything at all. But even her heartbeat is silent in her ears.

It’s so cold that she’s breathing without drawing breath, every ragged gasp frosting in front of her face, and she thinks her tears are freezing on her face. The monster leans in, close enough that their noses are brushing, and she can count the individual flecks of rust in his eyes, because they’re still staring, and she’s being tested, she knows she is.

‘Princess!’

And like that, sound slams back into her world, her ears, and she’s screaming still, Lucky’s growls at their loudest, barking as threateningly as he can manage.

But try as she might, she can’t answer, she _can’t_ answer.

‘Hush, you blasted dog.’

Lucky goes silent, and there’s a bang from the side of the bed. She daren’t look away, but she stops screaming for a second, two, three, listening for the sound of her pup moving, of anything to suggest he’s still alive. After too long, her boy whines, and the tightness she hadn’t noticed in her jaw eases a little. Her heart is hammering in her chest, and she opens her mouth to scream again, only to find her airways constricted, her breathing stopping dead in her throat.

‘That’s _better_.’

Black spots flicker at the corner of her eyes, and she scrabbles at her throat, but there’s nothing holding it, nothing pinning her throat shut. She gasps and chokes, tries to get some air, and the monster continues to watch her, fascinated, like a boy watching spiders.

‘You are not much,’ the monster breathes, hot and foul against her face. ‘For what Barton has made of you, you are so breakable. It’s sad, really. There’s so little fight in you.’

Laura’s chest is too tight, and her arms are going numb, her fingers seizing with the cold that has her trembling to her bones. The black spots are becoming black smears, and all she can see is the gleam of the monster’s eyes, the shining blue of the fire overtaking him.

And then that, too, is gone.

‘ _Laura_!’

Everything happens at once. Steve and Dugan burst into the room from the main doors, staggering through as their weight unbalances at the sudden opening of the doors. Monty and Bucky throw the balcony doors apart and barrel in, knives already drawn and raised. Gabe, Jim and Jacques appear in the servants’ door, stumbling over themselves when they fight to enter the room first only to find nothing awaiting them. Laura bolts upright, flat on her back and covered in her blankets as though she’d never left her bed. Lucky is standing with his front paws on the side of the bed, head cocked.

And there’s nothing there. Nothing at all. Just Laura in her bed.

She sits there for a second, panting as though she’d run the length of the King’s Wood, and then in a scramble of limbs and blankets, flings herself out of bed and into Dugan’s arms, sobbing and clinging to him. Dugan sweeps her up, holds her as close as he can, and Steve moves to touch her hair, curling his fingers into the loose strands, pressing a kiss to her head. Within a minute, the rest of them are there, and she’d imagine that not an inch of her could be seen from the press of bodies around her. They’re an impenetrable wall of muscle and wool and steel, and she couldn’t be safer.

But she can’t stop crying.

After that becomes obvious, Monty peels away from his cousin, gives her ankle one last rub, and murmurs that he’s going to get his wife.

‘She’ll know what to do,’ he says, and Steve, still with his mouth pressed to Laura’s crown, nods to him.

‘See if you can find Romanov,’ Bucky adds, and squeezes Laura’s hand, watching her fingers squeezing back. ‘She should be here, and she’s not, and I want to know where she is.’

‘She had an errand to run,’ Laura manages to choke out, but it’s barely coherent, wracked as it is with her heaving sobs. ‘For – for Nick. She had to go early this evening.’

Bucky rubs the back of her hand, and Dugan rubs his thumbs across her knee and under her arm where he’s holding her.

Once Monty’s gone with promises to obtain both his wife and Natasha, if she’s in the castle at all, they stand there quietly, supporting Laura where they can, and glancing at each other and the room where they can’t.

They’re still stood there when Heather bursts into the room, Monty and Natasha hot on her heels.

‘Put her down, for heaven’s sake, boys,’ she barks, and they leap a mile before hurrying to do as bid.

Laura clutches at Dugan’s shirt when he tries to back away, and the man-mountain appeals to Natasha. The Lady-in-Waiting, dressed as a man with her hair braided tight to her scalp, slips under Dugan’s arm and prises Laura’s fingers free, lacing their hands together and drawing Laura’s weeping face to her shoulder instead. Heather’s brought tea, and Monty puts the tray on the bed beside them when Heather takes a seat on Laura’s other side.

‘Natasha was on her way back,’ Monty explains, quiet, as they watch Heather try to assess Laura’s hysteria. ‘I met her in the corridor on my way back this way.’

‘I had business to attend to,’ Natasha says, ‘do you really think I’d be anywhere other than here if I’d had even the slightest clue?’

‘That’s quite enough,’ Heather says, cutting across Steve’s open mouth before he can bite back. ‘Quiet now, if you don’t mind.’

They hover helplessly as Heather does her best to calm Laura down, but no amount of blankets and carefully-measured cups of tea, no amount of soothing words and hands in her hair will soothe her or stop her from crying.

‘Natasha,’ Steve orders eventually. ‘Go and get Doctor Banner. I don’t care what he says, you bring him here.’

Natasha nods, and presses a kiss to Laura’s temple before slipping off the bed and making for the door. Steve is furious, that much is obvious, and Laura expects that there will be howled arguments had in that spot where they think she can’t hear them later, when things are better. But for now, no one knows what to do, and Heather’s hand on her neck feels too like the tight grip stealing her breath and she shakes it off, curls tight into her blankets.

Jacques murmurs something to Gabe, in the Frankish he pretends is the only language he speaks, and Gabe nods, murmurs to Steve.

‘It’s possible,’ Steve says, ‘we’ll look into it in the morning.’

‘What’s that?’ Heather asks, but Steve shakes his head, and watches as Bucky moves to kneel next to Laura’s knees, her feet curled under her, looking up at her as she buries her face in her hands anew, wracking herself with the dry heaving of someone who’s cried too much.

Doctor Banner comes trotting after Natasha several minutes later, wringing his hands the way he always wrings his hands, and Natasha shoves Dugan’s arm to get him to move aside and let the doctor through. Bucky leaps to his feet and steps away from Laura, back towards the boys.

‘Ah, there you are, Doctor,’ Steve sighs, and moves to clap the man on the arm.

Surrounded by the towering Queen’s Guard as he is, where he is only taller than Natasha, Jim and Jacques, Doctor Banner looks tiny, but they all look to him with the same reverence they always do.

‘Miss Romanov said it was urgent,’ he says, in that quiet way of his, and Steve points to where Laura is swaddled in blankets in the centre of her bed, Heather sat to her side, a hand on the Princess’ knee, rubbing her thumb across the blankets.

Laura’s still rocking herself, and her trembling is visible, even under the blankets, tears streaked down her face.

‘Well, first of all, you boys need to clear off,’ Doctor Banner says, and steps out of his shoes to climb onto the bed the other side of Laura, reaching for her hand.

She gives it willingly, and he presses his fingers to her wrist, measures her pulse.

‘Clear off?’ Jim echoes.

‘Yes. You need to go back to your duties, there are too many people in here, and it’s not helping matters at all. Go – go talk about this, or go to sleep yourselves, or whatever it is you usually do this time of night. Miss Romanov and Mrs Falsworth can stay, and run any errands I need to them to run, but you boys need to go.’

They share a look, in varying levels of disgruntled confusion, but do as they’re told and vacate, leaving just Natasha and Heather in the room.

Doctor Banner stays until the sun comes up and sets Laura’s heart at ease. Over the hours between then and now, the Doctor had both Natasha and Heather running back and forth to fetch him different blankets and different blends of tea in different cups and all the while, he held onto Laura’s wrist and talked in that soft, familiar tone Laura had known him to always use. Having him there was not the same as having the boys, but the Doctor was right; having them there wasn’t helping.

A knock at the door; Monty, come to check that all is well.

‘Excuse me, Your Highness,’ Heather says, and slips out of the room to assure her husband that all was indeed well and that Laura was as safe and well as she could be.

‘How do you feel?’ Doctor Banner asks, and glances at Natasha, who has taken up the chair by Laura’s dresser and scribbles away in a journal, no doubt cataloguing the dawn’s progression in the event she needs to refer to it later.

God forbid this happens again, he muses.

‘I’m – I’m better,’ Laura murmurs, and rubs at her eyes. ‘I was just – it was so real. The nightmare was so real, and it was terrifying, to think someone could sneak in here and just _stand_ there. Watching me. It was more terrifying than if he’d done anything to me. Does that make sense? I was so scared, Doctor, I thought I was going to die. But – the sun is up, and the sun has always banished the darkness. I will be fine, I think. It was just a dream.’

Laura has never been a very good liar. But Doctor Banner watches her face, surely seeing the lie there, because Laura is sure it was _not_ just a dream, and eventually he nods, lets go of her wrist with a last pat to the back of her hand.

‘If you’re sure,’ he says, ‘I’ll take my leave. I’ll tell this to the boys too, but if you need anything from me, come straight away, and I’ll do my best. I expect I’ll have to have Betty make up a sleeping draught this evening, so I’ll find the books in preparation.’

‘I’m sure I’ll be fine, Doctor, but thank you.’

The nightmare is still terrifying her by bedtime, and she refuses to sleep alone, so Bucky offers himself and Steve for the night. It’s highly improper, but Bucky gets this look on his face when Steve opens his mouth to protest the improperness of staying in the Princess’ bedchamber instead of outside the door.

‘Get any of the boys to stay at the door,’ Bucky says, already perched on the edge of Laura’s bed to unlace his boots. ‘It’s about time they pulled their weight on the night watch. I, for one, am not leaving this room until dawn, and our dear Mrs Falsworth comes and yanks me out by my ankles.’

‘She hasn’t done that since before she was Mrs Falsworth,’ Steve snorts, but goes to the door and disappears through it. Bucky eases himself into the space at Laura’s back, moulding himself against the curve of her spine and Lucky sprawls out in the space before her, cocooning her in the warmth of trapped sheets and a body at her back.

‘Sleep, Princess,’ Bucky murmurs, hot against her ear, his hand warm and familiar against her arm. ‘I’ll be here all night, and Steve’ll be back soon.’

‘Sorry to keep you from your bed,’ she murmurs back, and reaches around to touch his hand, squeezing it fondly.

‘I’d have been on watch,’ he says, ‘usually am. Me an’ Steve. We always try to take watch. Gotta keep you safe.’

She had noticed that they weren’t around as much during the day, that she was usually accompanied by either Gabe or Jim, or Dugan or Monty, if they were around. It was rare that Jacques would spend time with her if he wasn’t with the others too, and she didn’t mind that overmuch. Whatever he did when he wasn’t on active service was clearly very important, and she had enough protection to sacrifice his. She’d tried to make him leave, reprioritize his life, but he refused to listen, and continued reporting for duty.

It was all very strange, but with the Captain of the Queen’s Guard being a man whom she’d known as a rake-thin, terminally ill boy barely a hairline taller than her before a Fair Lady’s spell saved him and turned him into a bronze statue of a man, she didn’t think much of it.

She was drifting when Steve crept back into the room, and she opened her eyes halfway to watch him as he settles himself into the armchair in the shadow by the balcony doors.

He’s barely visible where he is, and Laura watches Steve vanish into the darkness when the moon goes behind a cloud. She knows he’s still there, and she finds her eyes shutting again, comfortable, at least a little, with the weight of him in the room, his presence too big to miss it. It’s nice, familiar, and she loves that she has it there.

‘How is she?’ Steve asks, quiet, when he clearly thinks that she’s fallen asleep.

‘She’s exhausted,’ Bucky replies, and slowly eases himself out of bed.

Laura obligingly rolls into the space he’d occupied, spreading herself out over the warmth his body had left behind, and sighs.

‘The nightmare sounded bad,’ Bucky adds, and Steve hums.

‘The doors were jammed. I’ve never known that to happen.’

‘Do you think it was real? Part of that Barton fella’s curse?’

Steve grunts, and fabric shifts as Bucky settles himself into the other armchair.

‘It’s possible,’ he admits, and Laura feels her bones settle at the softness of his voice. ‘But she’s keeping something from us, from me. I don’t know what it is yet, but it’s something. She’s never hidden anything from me before.’

‘She hides plenty from you,’ Bucky snorts. ‘I know things that I know for a fact you _don’t_ know. Don’t worry yourself over it. She’ll tell you when she’s ready to tell you. Besides, I’ve seen that brother of hers getting up in her face over the past few weeks. She’s probably just worried about that, whatever that is.’

‘He bothers me,’ Steve admits, and then Laura stops listening, because talk of her brother has always bored her.

Jason is a spoiled brat of a Prince and she almost wants to be married into another kingdom just to avoid the mess he’ll make of York when he gets his hands on it. He’s smart, viciously so, but in the wrong ways. If there isn’t a war within a decade of him being crowned, Laura will – will – she’ll apologise, but she doubts that Jason will be able to maintain relationships with their neighbouring kingdoms the way Laura is already maintaining relationships with them. She’s been writing letters to the other royal children for a decade, and they visit where possible. She hasn’t been for months, but she’s excited for the possibility of the ball season starting again in barely a month.

But Jason is for another evening’s thoughts, for now, she’s falling into a relatively peaceful slumber, filled with the sensation of Clint’s hands in hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the slight delay on this chapter, it's been a Trying couple of weeks at work, but hopefully I'll be able to get back on track. I'm also sorry for the chapter in general i feel like its such filler??? but alas


	4. Meetings of Varying Merriness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint finds a pendant, Laura finds an answer, and Fury loses the will.

Laura goes to put on an emerald necklace one morning, a week or so after the nightmare, and frowns. It’s missing a pendant. The centrepiece of the necklace, the main appeal of it, is gone. The whole thing is ruined now, and she sighs. It could be turned into a tiara, she supposes, and rubs her thumb over the loop where the pendant had been joined to the main necklace.

When had she last worn it? Perhaps she could find the pendant, and have the necklace repaired.

After several minutes of racking her brains, she realises; she’d worn the necklace that day in the woods, when she’d raced to find Clint before Monty caught up to her, determined as she was to ask him of his birth. She’d tripped and gotten nettle rash across a palm.

‘It’s as good as gone,’ she sighs, because there is no way she can retrace her steps to find the pendant now.

She puts the necklace away and opts for amethyst instead.

A knock at the door makes her jump, and she glances up to find Jim poking his head through the door.

‘My turn,’ he says, and she laughs.

‘I’m almost done,’ she says, and finishes putting her earrings in before going to the door.

After the nightmare, Steve had reaffirmed his insistence on Laura being accompanied at all times, and her bedroom door must remain open throughout the night. It drives her mad, but she doesn’t complain _too_ much about it, for the boys’ lengthy shadows spreading across the soft rug on her floor is soothing, and it _is_ comforting to fall asleep to the knowledge that they’re in touching distance.

Jim takes her down to the offices, where a mound of paperwork is waiting for her. The King is determined to have her ready to take the throne before the end of the year, and she is determined to learn, and so she settles herself in her chair with a pot of tea and Jim in the corner, Lucky dozing at her feet, and she sets to work.

It’s a fine day, summery with a gentle breeze and barely a cloud in the sky, and the wide windows are opened mid-morning to let in the fresh, floral air and the brilliant sunshine. All it does is make Laura long to be outside, but she has work to do. She finishes said work for the day by lunchtime, and after washing her hands of politics, she washes her hands clean of the soup Miss Martinelli made for lunch.

‘I think I wish to go practice my archery,’ she says after a brief period of silence, spent sat in the windowseat looking out over the gardens.

Jim makes a face; he hates archery, but Bucky adores it, adores spending time with Laura on the range the way Gabe adores being in the library with her.

‘Come on, then,’ he says, ‘let’s go get him.’

Bucky’s down in the Guards’ room, on the sofa with his legs over Steve’s lap, both of them reading. Though it does look more like Bucky’s napping, what with the way he snaps upright at their entrance.

‘Princess!’ he exclaims, grinning like the fool he is. ‘What a pleasant surprise! What brings you all the way down to our dark corner?’

‘She wants to play at being an archer,’ Jim says, and shrugs out of his pelisse, depositing the heavy green wool onto a chair before depositing himself into another. ‘Figured you’d want to take over.’

Laura doesn’t often go into the Guards’ room, doesn’t really have need to, and she notes a few new additions since her last visit several weeks ago, when she demanded to know of Barton’s fate. There are more books stacked on the writing desk in the corner, the chair different – and she wouldn’t be surprised to find out Steve had broken it by accident by climbing on it in an attempt to catch a song sparrow that had flown in through the open window – and more of Steve’s sketches spread out across the low table in front of the couch. The dark wood panelling is still the same, the deliberately awful painting hung above the mantel is still the same as ever, still with its familiar knife jammed into Lord Pierce’s eyeball, and the heavy drapes at the open window were still the familiar deep burgundy.

It’s a nice room – too dark for her tastes, but nice all the same. It suits the boys to the ground, and she loves seeing them make it a little more their own every time she stops by.

Bucky is padding around collecting his things. Steve is sat on his pelisse, and one of his boots has disappeared under the armchair Jim is sitting in, so there is some waiting to be had. Laura helps herself to Steve’s scattered sketches while he bickers with the Captain, and thumbs through them, sighing at every “rough” sketch he’s done.

‘I do wish my father would just have you do the official portraits,’ she sighs, the way she always sighs when she looks at Steve’s art.

Steve just laughs, and finally shimmies across to let Bucky have his pelisse.

‘I’d never do Royal portraiture,’ he says. ‘Not officially anyway. Hashing out a sketch of you daydreaming is not the same as having a painting that’s going to hang in the great hall for centuries, you know.’

‘No, of course not, but if this is you when you aren’t trying, Steve – ‘

‘Oh, don’t bang your head against a wall,’ Bucky snorts, cutting her off. ‘He won’t change his mind any time soon, and why waste a good day for archery on him?’

 Steve pulls a face at Bucky’s back, and as if feeling it, Bucky turns back and makes a face that has Steve’s wrinkled nose and curled lip smoothing into something soft and fond. Laura likes Steve’s face best like that, when he looks younger than his years and something more human than he normally does. The sternness to his face on a day-to-day basis has him seeming unapproachable, a stone guardian standing resolute at her door, and it’s rare, after that business with Clint in the woods, to see a smile like that on his face.

As they walk towards the range, at the far side of the garden, built especially for her when she’d taken an interest in the sport, Laura considers Steve and his ruminations. Her consideration is so obvious on her face that Bucky asks her what she’s thinking about.

‘Steve’s still mad about Barton, isn’t he?’ she asks. ‘Mad at me, too, I imagine.’

‘No,’ Bucky replies with a shake of his head. Raking his hair back from his face, he looks to the clear sky above them. ‘No, it’s not you, it’s – it’s him. It’s us, the Guard as a unit. It’s Natasha. It’s Barton. It’s that nightmare. He’s been thinking hard about it ever since you had the damn thing, and he won’t stop until he’s worked through whatever it is he’s working through.’

They walk in silence for another half-minute.

‘I think the nightmare was real,’ she says.

‘So do I.’

Again, silence.

‘Bucky, I – ‘

Laura stops talking, and sighs, stops walking too. After a few steps, Bucky stops and turns back. There must be a look on her face, because he lopes back to her and cups her cheeks in both hands, pressing a little to purse her lips and make her smile the way she always smiles when he pushes her cheeks.

‘What is it?’

‘I know Steve will say no, I know that he would rather I die than let me, but I want to see Barton again.’

‘First of all, he wouldn’t rather you die, no matter what the circumstance, and second of all, you must think we don’t know you at all, Princess. You’re pining for him, and we can all see it.’

‘I am not pining,’ Laura sniffs, and turns her head, freeing herself of Bucky’s hands.

‘Whatever you say, Princess. If you want to see him that bad, I’ll do my best to work on Steve and get him to consider it. I can’t promise I’ll get him to allow it, but I’ll get him to consider it.’

‘He’ll say no.’

‘If he’ll consider it, he’ll probably agree. He struggles to say no to me. I can bat my eyelashes better than you girls can, you know.’

‘I have never batted my eyelashes at all.’

‘I bet you batted your eyelashes at Miss Martinelli in the kitchen,’ he teases, and takes her hand, tugs her onwards, the last few feet until they’re at the gate for the range. ‘I bet you batted your eyelashes and got extra bread with your soup, because you only like the bread she makes when it’s fresh from the oven.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ she says, but she’s laughing.

* * *

 

Clint is trekking through the woods when he stumbles across a glittering green stone, set in the prettiest silver filigree. It’s a beautiful little thing, and he crouches there staring at it and breathing hard through his mouth because it smells of Laura.

It smells of her, of honey and vanilla and he can’t stop himself from reaching for it. It must be part of a necklace, he thinks, turning the stone over in his hands, and he looks at the twisted loop at the top of the silverwork. A quick twist, and he has it straightened up.

Later, after he’s returned to the cottage and forgotten about the pendant, dropped onto the table and hidden beneath his hunting back and quiver, he finds himself picking it up again, a thin strand of leather in hand. It doesn’t take long for him to thread it through and tie it about his neck, the silver and the stone cold against his skin, settling between his collarbones like it belongs there.

Though the smell of Laura has faded, mostly, he never forgets that the stone is hers, that it is something that has sat on her décolletage, and he finds his fingers brushing the stone every so often, smiling to himself. It makes it hard to think, because the smell of her is ever present, is close to his heart, and he imagines the quick little rabbit-like rhythm he finds his heart beating is the same beat of her heart. It’s a silly thing to imagine, and he does his best to dismiss it as the flight of fancy that it is, turning his attention to the rabbit stew he’s doing his best to make.

Later still, he finds himself climbing onto the cottage roof, where the castle’s tallest towers are just about visible above the treeline, picked out in bright reds and golden tones by an early-afternoon sun. It could be quite imposing, Clint thinks, if he weren’t aware of his ability to raze it to the ground in barely a breath, and if he weren’t aware of Laura’s presence inside. She softens the world as much as she sharpens it, and contradicts every feeling nestled deep in Clint’s gut. The monster under his skin is both calmed and enraged by her presence, and he does not fear what it can do so much while at the same time fearing it in a way he hasn’t for a hundred or more years. He’d almost come to terms with his monstrous nature, but then he saw her in the clearing and everything came undone, like a stray thread on some Lady’s crocheted shawl catching on one bramble or another, and the whole lot coming undone in one fell swoop.

Putting the feeling into words, verbal or not, hurts. It hurts like losing a limb, and Clint finds himself staring at the castle, yearning for simpler days, when there wasn’t a wall to scale, when the biggest threat was one of the more aggressive stallions escaping its stable and trampling him or his hide getting tanned by the stable-master catching him slacking off and ogling the prettiest girl in the world. He finds himself yearning for the days where he could perch atop bales of hay next to that same prettiest girl in the world with a book open on her lap, running her finger along the words so he could follow along. He yearns for the days when he knew who he was and what he could be. He yearns for the days where he could think the word “princess” without almost biting his tongue off.

A chill brushes down his spine, and he leaps to his feet, glances about, looks for the telltale blue that signals _Loki_.

But he is alone, and there is nothing but the silence of the woods to greet him.

* * *

She aims high and follows the arrow down – she missed the ball but that’s not a –

She gasps and staggers back a few steps.

‘Bucky!’ she gasps, pointing, ‘there’s a man, by the wall.’

Bucky looks, but the man is gone. There isn’t even a disturbance in the bushes to suggest that there was anyone there at all.

‘Stay there,’ he orders, and jogs off down the range to investigate.

Laura stays in a visible place, where Bucky only has to glance back to see her, and twists her hands around her bow. It’s not often someone manages to get over the wall and sneak into the castle grounds, and Laura doesn’t remember the last time she saw the person sneaking in. Whenever it’s happened over the last few years, the castle guard have found and removed them before they’ve got through the courtyard, which suits Laura just fine. She knows that some of the men in the dungeon are men who got caught on the grounds, and are now permanent visitors to the castle. Granted, they only see the dungeon, but it’s still the castle.

But that man – there was something about him. He was too far away to see him clearly, but Laura had felt – had felt – something. There was a peculiar draw to him, the same way there was a draw to Clint, but where Clint prompted butterflies and moths, fluttering at the heat of his gaze, that man drew only bats and slugs and things that made her stomach churn.

‘I can’t see anyone,’ Bucky says when he returns some minutes later. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t just a servant?’

‘Quite positive,’ Laura says, ‘he wasn’t dressed like a servant. He was in – in – it was leather, like Barton’s jerkin. And he had reddish hair. Not red like Natasha’s, his was browner. But it was red enough to _tell_ that it was red.’

Bucky watches the hedges, and the space immediately around them with the narrowed eyes he gets when he’s ready to move at a moment’s notice. It’s something cat-like, a prowling hunter watching for its prey. She doesn’t see the look often, but she’s seen it enough to recognise it.

‘I think we’d best go in,’ he says, and grabs her arm, ushers her in the direction of the doors. As they pass a servant, he lets go of her to grab them by the arm, and says, ‘go and find Miss Romanov. I want her to meet us as soon as she can. Tell her we’re going to the Queen’s Guard’s drawing room.’

The servant nods and hurries off down the corridor. Laura continues to twist her bow in her hands, and lets Bucky follow her to the Guards’ room.

‘You’re back early,’ Jim says, and then they all look up, and are immediately on their feet.

‘What is it?’ Steve asks, as Dugan moves to Laura to take the bow from her hands and the quiver off her back.

‘I need you all with me,’ Bucky says, ‘someone’s snuck in. Wearing leather, red hair, a man. Laura, is there anything else?’

‘He was tall,’ she says, ‘I can’t say how tall, but he was – around your height, I’d say. He was so far away, beyond the target. It was hard to judge from that distance. He was – not big, like you Steve, or you Dugan. But he wasn’t scrawny like Monty either. He was broad, but not big.’

The boys nod.

‘Jacques,’ Steve says, ‘escort her back to her bedchamber, and stay with her until we return. Keep Romanov with you.’

Jacques nods, and falls in beside Laura, his hand pulling hers into the crook of his arm, patting her fingers gently.

‘ _Oui_ ,’ he says, and then, quietly, ‘come along.’

Natasha meets them in the corridor outside Laura’s bedchamber, and converse in rapid Frankish with Jacques, her expression growing darker.

‘A man?’ she asks Laura, who nods, and collapses into her dressing table’s chair when she reaches it.

‘A man,’ she agrees.

‘I’m offended that they didn’t ask me to help them look,’ Natasha says, and goes to the balcony doors, slamming them shut and drawing the curtains. It doesn’t quite plunge the room into darkness, but Jacques lights a candle anyway. ‘I’m good at finding people who don’t want to be found.’

Jacques says something in Frankish and Natasha snorts.

‘Don’t pretend you don’t speak Yorkish,’ she tells him, and goes the hidden door as he goes to the wardrobes.

‘I don’t speak Yorkish,’ Jacques says, ‘not well.’

Laura stares at her hands, and says nothing. Not for the first time, she finds that more than Natasha, whose mere presence in the room is a quiet comfort, because nothing can hurt her while Natasha is in the room, because Natasha can and will kill anybody who tries to harm her, more than Jacques, who has been nothing less than perfect in his role in the Queen’s Guard, more than the pair of them, she wants Clint. She wants Clint to hold her hands and for his eyes to flash and for him to tell her that everything will be fine.

She wants Clint to hold her, to be able to breathe in the smell of him, leather and sweat and Peggy and the curse, cold and ice-wet and sweet. She wants to feel the warmth of him burning her palms, the intensity of his gaze making her feel naked. She’s never wanted anything like it, and it terrifies her.

‘Laura?’ Natasha asks, and Laura looks up, finds Natasha crouched by her feet, face pinched. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing,’ she says, and forces a smile on her face. ‘Just concerned about the man I saw, is all. I just hope he’s not here to hurt anybody.’

‘He won’t succeed,’ Natasha assures her, and cups Laura’s cheek, brushes her thumb across a tear Laura didn’t know she’s shed. ‘Your boys are good boys, they’ll find him and they’ll find out what he wants.’

Almost an hour passes. Jacques and Natasha bandy ideas back and forth for possible changes to security in the castle, and eventually Jacques says that he has an idea, but he’ll need to confer with the relevant parties first. When asked for an explanation, Jacques laughs and says that there is no point in telling anybody anything yet, because the idea may not work. 

Laura tries to read, but can’t focus on the words, tries to write a letter to one of her neighbouring princesses, to gossip about the upcoming ball season, to ask for advice about what colour to make her gown for the birthday ball that will happen on the fourth evening of the season, to ask about romance – and that is where she stops writing and tears the letter into tiny slivers, scattering them across the room. It gets her a look, but she settles on her bed and tries to read some more. Lucky rests his head in her lap, but he isn’t much of a comfort, because Lucky is warm and sand-brown and very nice, but he isn’t Clint.

Just when she thinks she’s gone quite mad and will never be right again, Bucky comes bursting through the doors.

‘We couldn’t find him,’ he says, his golden face flushed, ‘we’ve searched everywhere, but there’s no sign.’

Natasha’s fingers drum against the dressing table where she’s presently sat for a moment, and then she rises to her feet, dusts her skirt off.

‘Go and get a glass of water, Barnes,’ she says, and tosses a curl of hair from her face. ‘I’m going to see the Commander, see what he’s found out. You _have_ told him, yes?’

‘Yes,’ Bucky replies, and follows her out of the door with an order for Jacques to remain with Laura, ‘of course I have.’

Laura listens to them bicker all the way down the corridor, and sighs when their voices have faded into nothingness. Jacques offers her a smile, but says nothing, returning to picking his nails with a small, sharp-looking knife as he’d been doing for the last hour. He looks so nonchalant and carefree, but Laura doesn’t believe for a second his every thought is on his on his surroundings.

It almost makes her feel safe, but the lengthening shadows streaming through her open balcony doors are spidery and she fears turning her back on them. If Jacques notices, he says nothing.

* * *

 

Commander Fury calls a meeting with the Queen’s Guard, Natasha, and his direct subordinates the morning after Laura saw the man. He sends one of his boys to watch over her in the meantime, and they gather around a cluttered war table while Fury stands with his hands on the mahogany.

‘What in the name of the Holy _Mother_ is happening?’ he asks. ‘Enlighten me, please. I have the Princess freeing a prisoner, escaping her Guardsmen to go gallivanting off into the woods, sneaking out in the night to see a priest in a tavern in Lower Town, and now a nightmare that, in all actuality, was most likely real and as if that wasn’t enough to be getting on with, yesterday she saw a man we can’t find, never mind identify, creeping around. So please, explain all of this to me.’

They all remain silent for several long moments. Each of them has an idea about how to explain it, but none of them wants to say a word.

After too long, Steve asks, ‘when did she sneak out to see the priest?’

Bucky cuts across him before he gets too worked up and says, ‘it’s because of Barton. All of this started because she met him.’

‘And you want to what? Kill him? People have been trying for centuries.’

They look at Nat, who looks faintly amused.

‘No,’ Bucky sniffs, offended. ‘I know I won’t be able to kill a cursed man. That kind of thing is best left to the Fair Folk.’

They continue to bicker for several minutes, the others weighing in on it as well, and Fury goes to stand at the window instead, looking down on the garden, where Laura is walking with Doctor Ross and her dog, one of Fury’s vetted boys tailing behind them and keeping an eye out for that red-haired man Laura had seen. The Princess and the Doctor are arm in arm, and Laura is leaning close to the taller woman, and it looks very relaxed and tender and feminine. After they disappear around a corner and the hedgerow obscures all but the top of Doctor Ross’ head, he turns back to find them still bickering.

‘Enough,’ he says, ‘that’s plenty enough of that. Let’s go back to the important thing; none of you are doing your jobs properly.’

When several mouths open, Fury cuts them all off with a short, ‘we would not be in this room now if you were doing your jobs properly.’

‘I searched for Barton,’ Hill says after nobody else offers anything. ‘But there’s no record of him anywhere. If he was put on the parish records as Laura believed him to be, it was under a false name, but we’ve got no clue which false name that was, so he’s as good as non-existent. Murdock knows him personally, but he won’t talk; Coulson tried.’

Coulson nods. ‘I asked very nicely if he could tell me anything about the matter, but he refused to say anything. Very loyal to Barton, I suppose.’

Steve frowns. ‘Murdock is cursed too, isn’t he?’

‘So they say.’

He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair. ‘I’m lost. I thought I knew every little thing that Laura was doing, but this is – I barely know her at all.’

Natasha, across the table with her hands folded in her lap and looking so prim and proper and too like a lurking shadow of something creepy and crawling and many-legged, smiles.

‘She’s falling in love,’ she says, as though that explains everything.

‘Horseshit,’ Dugan says, and Natasha laughs.

‘How can she be falling for him?’ Gabe asks, ‘she’s seen him twice.’

‘Love at first sight is a thing that exists, you know,’ Monty says, his nose wrinkling.

The bickering begins anew, and Fury sighs.

It’s going to continue in this vein for hours, because this is how it always continues when he calls for a meeting with everyone at once. Thank the heavens that Stark isn’t here too; Fury had had the foresight at least to speak to Stark separately and see what he knew of Laura’s recent infatuation, and all Stark had been able to provide was an impression of Barton as someone Laura could learn to love very easily, and likely be happy with for the rest of her life, if she were given half a chance to find out. Fury had initially dismissed Stark’s thoughts, because Stark was notoriously inept at understanding what women wanted and what they thought, but with Natasha backing that thought up, perhaps Stark was closer to the mark than he had initially seemed.

Falling for a man she’d met twice – one of those being when she released him from the dungeon with no paperwork attached, so he was now, technically, a fugitive, and they had permission to kill him on sight – that had seemed so farfetched initially. But here Laura was, causing a ruckus over him without even being present to start the fight.

It gives Fury hope for her as Queen, in that roundabout way he has, where he sees twelve steps head of his current move, and he turns to the window again as the bickering turns to outright hollering, and watches as Laura and the Doctor come back into view. Laura looks contemplative, an he watches her watching her feet, wonders what they talked about, what was said and more importantly, what wasn’t.

He’ll ask Ross what was said when he’s done here; she’s a sensible enough girl, she’ll have some answers for him.

* * *

‘Doctor Ross?’

Ross looks up, and smiles. Laura is hovering in her doorway, accompanied by one of Fury’s specials, and she looks awkward, wringing her hands, and glancing at her feet. It’s sweet, and Ross feels a rush of affection in a way she doesn’t usually feel rushes of affection for anyone not Banner and often Sam, particularly where the Romanov girl is concerned.

‘Yes, Princess? How can I help? Are you taken ill?’

‘No, no, not that at all.’ She glances over her shoulder at her guard before entering the office fully, but not taking the seat opposite Ross’ desk. ‘I was hoping I might talk to you, if you aren’t busy at all.’

Ross has plenty to be getting on with, but Laura is looking fretful, and that is a sign to put down her pen and spread her palms.

‘Of course,’ she says, ‘take a seat, I can make tea.’

‘I’d – I would rather we walked,’ she says, ‘it’s a lovely day, and I’d hate to be cooped up all day with the boys in that meeting with Commander Fury. I thought perhaps we might walk Lucky, and talk at the same time?’

Ross looks at the guard taking Laura’s place in hovering at the door, and eventually nods.

‘If that’s what you wish,’ she says, and dusts off her hands, gets to her and follows Laura to the gardens.

Laura tucks her hand into Ross’ elbow, and leans against her shoulder, for Ross is very tall and very pretty, and Laura does not get to spend much time with her, outside of her illnesses in the earliest parts of summer and latest parts of winter. They walk in silence for several long moments, Lucky ahead of them, sniffing everything in reach of his nose, and Laura’s guard walks several paces behind them.

‘You wished to talk?’ Ross offers eventually, and Laura nods.

‘Yes, yes, I wanted to ask you about Doctor Banner.’

‘About Bruce? What would you like to know?’

‘How did you know he was – you were in love with him?’

Ross’ eyebrows climb, and then settle into a contemplative frown.

‘I suppose I – I cannot say I always knew. But I always suspected, I think. I saw him, and then I _saw_ him. As if my eyes were open for the first time, and I saw everything that he was, and everything that he wasn’t. That is the thing, you understand; love is not just seeing what someone is, it is not seeing all the good in them, it is seeing their shadows too, their darkness, and it is appreciating that it is a part of them.’

‘His curse,’ Laura murmurs, and Ross laughs.

‘I suppose so, yes. He is no longer cursed, for all the sun would play tricks on his eyes and make them shine like emeralds. His curse was broken a long time ago, before we even came to work in the castle under Doctor Erskine’s tutelage. Heavens, you must have been a baby then. Her Majesty was still with us; I remember her asking us for poultices for nausea caused by nursing you.’

Laura chuckles; it’s rare that she gets to hear stories of her mother from anyone not her father, and she relishes them for all it makes the knife between her ribs twist sharply.

‘How did you break his curse?’ she asks, to detract from the pain in her ribs.

Ross pauses for a second, and frowns at the Princess.

‘Why are you so interested?’ she asks, ‘I’ll answer, certainly, I am merely curious as to the interest.’

‘I’m sure you’ve heard of my – ah – adventure, in the King’s Wood, some months ago. I sprained my ankle, and Captain Rogers caught a hunter.’

Doctor Ross hums, and says, ‘yes, I heard he escaped.’

‘He did,’ Laura says, and smiles to herself. ‘He has a curse, too. I’m not exactly sure what kind of curse it is. But I think I know what caused it.’

‘That’s half the battle,’ Ross says. ‘But it’s not enough of the battle to consider it won. True Love is often the only thing that will break a curse. It is something purer and stronger than any dark magic, something that transcends all of the evil in the world. It doesn’t have to be romantic love, from what I understand, but it has to be true. It has to be genuine and real, and that’s the only stipulation. It just happens that most often with curses, the truest love is romantic, because it’s the cursed one’s lover who stands by them the longest. I’ve known of a few curses that have been broken by familial love, but it’s rare, and I can’t name them from memory.’

Laura hums.

‘If you intend to break your hunter’s curse, you have to love _him_ , My Lady, not merely the idea of him. You have to love him, and he has to love you. Speaking not as a doctor or as a member of your father’s staff, but as a friend, as a woman who’s done this, I – I want to warn you. It might not end well. If you cannot break the curse, one or the both of you may very well wind up dead. Curses are not easy to break.’

 ‘I understand,’ Laura says, and squeezes Ross’ arm. ‘I’ll think about it.’

And she does, she thinks about nothing but for three days straight, forgetting to eat, because she’s so caught up in her thoughts that she stirs her soup but does not eat it, or sits there with a fork halfway to her mouth for several minutes before putting the fork down. It’s very odd behaviour for her, and both her father and her brother petition to Steve to find the cause of it. Steve is, after all, the man in charge of her safety, and with one of seven of the boys with her at every moment, they must surely know what’s wrong.

Steve tries to defend both his boys and Laura herself, by insisting that they don’t have a view into her head and can’t tell what she’s thinking, but Steve is a terrible liar, and everybody who knows him knows that. But the King and the Crown Prince have never cared all that much for the current Queen’s Guard, as they’d been completely replaced when they were sworn into Laura’s service, and so they barely know Steve to recognise his lies when they see them.

So Steve, freed from a meeting that makes his skin crawl and his fingers itch for the sharp knife he keeps in the back of his boot just in case, goes to Laura to demand that she tell him the truth. He knows that she freed Barton, and knows that she snuck out to see Murdock in Lower Town. It’s late in the evening, so Laura is sat at her dressing table, brushing her hair a hundred times, muttering the count under her breath, and she stares at him in the mirror as he counts of the things she’d kept from him.

‘What else don’t I know?’ he demands, and Laura puffs up.

Somewhere across the room, making some song and dance of doing an embroidery loop, Natasha snorts with laughter.

‘There’s so much you don’t know,’ Laura tells him, ‘and there’s more still that I don’t need to tell you, nor, particularly, do I have any inclination to do so.’

‘Laura,’ Steve starts, and she gets to her feet, turns to face him head-on.

‘I wish to see Barton again,’ she tells him, because she’s thought about it non-stop for almost a week, and Bucky, sat on the far side of the room playing tug-of-war with a tiring Lucky and a knotted piece of ship’s rope, sits straight, his eyes widening.

‘You what?’ he asks.

‘What?’ Steve echoes.

‘You heard me loud and clear,’ Laura tells them. ‘I wish to see him again, and I’ll ride out whether you accompany me or not.’

‘I cannot allow that,’ Steve says.

‘You cannot stop me,’ Laura replies.

They stand there facing each other for several moments, and eventually Bucky gets to his feet, leaves Lucky to his rope.

‘Who has the fastest horse?’ he asks, ‘out of all of us, whose horse is the fastest?’

Steve considers it. ‘Monty’s,’ he says, ‘he’s got one of the same stock as Laura’s Duke.’

‘Then send Monty with her,’ Bucky offers, lays a soft hand on Steve’s arm, hard as steel with how tight his fist is clenched at his side. ‘Send Monty with her to see Barton, and if anything happens; he’ll be able to run her back on the horse. He’s a good rider, and a good Guardsman. And besides, she’s his baby cousin; he’d cut off a limb before he saw her hurt.’

Laura sniffs. ‘She’s right here.’

‘ _She_ ,’ Bucky warns, casting her a look, ‘can be right there all she likes.’

Steve wavers for a moment.

‘We can’t all go,’ he says, ‘it’s a waste of our time. But Monty’ll be enough for now. Let him take her to see Barton, and we’ll go from there.’

Steve eyes his charge, and Laura eyes him in turn.

‘I’ll go regardless,’ she says, ‘I’ve outridden Monty before, I’ll outride him again.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t. All right,’ he says, with a resigned nod. ‘All right. We’ll play it your way. We’ll see what Barton does. At the first sign of danger, you’re coming straight back to the castle.’

‘I’m not a child.’

‘I am not jeopardising your safety because you want to kiss some convict.’

‘I don’t want to kiss him,’ Laura protests.

‘You’re a terrible liar,’ Natasha offers, and Laura throws her hairbrush, still clutched in her hand, to her maid, who catches it without looking and tosses it back.

* * *

As much as she can be, Laura is sure of her feelings towards Clint. She’s fairly certain she’s falling in love with him; having never been in love before, she can’t be certain, but this is, she thinks, what being in love feels like. Her heart races and her palms sweat and she feels so content to think of his arms around her. She even, though she does not think she’ll ever admit it aloud, to him or anyone, feels warm to think of her legs around him. It’s wrong to think of him so, she’s sure, for he is a commoner, a low born convict of a hunter, even if he is under a curse, one that she is fairly certain turns him into a dragon around her. Thinking of laying with him is immoral, wrong, a damnable thing.

But she thinks about it all the same,  and likes the butterflies it leaves her with.

Her mother would be so proud of her.

Monty accompanies her so far into the woods, and she tells him to stop here, to wait for her. He hates it as much as the rest of the Guardsmen, but they promised to at least try, and she doesn’t think Clint is all that far away. Monty will be with her in no time, if it comes to that. She doesn’t think it will, though. Clint has proven himself to be capable of controlling himself. She has no reason to not trust him, besides the curse holding him by the throat.

So Laura makes her way on foot, alone and following the sound of Clint’s humming, a beautiful melody she only half recognises as one popular at balls.

She opens her mouth to call to him, but the rush of the water makes her wonder if perhaps he’s fishing, and she wouldn’t want to scare the fish away.

Then she passes through the trees and into the clearing and fishing is not what he’s doing.

She’s seen him in states of undress before, but never completely naked, and she draws a soft breath, as quiet as she can, admiring the wet shine of his body when he hauls himself half out of the water to get something from one of the bags beside the pool. Coarse soap, she thinks, from the Lower Town market, a shilling or so a pound, made of animal fat and scented with dried herbs. It was murder for her skin, and she wonders if she might make a gift of good soap, the kind she had brought to her from the far side of the country, scented with the gentle florals and honeys that she had, over the years, become known for.

The warmth pools in her belly again, lower, between her legs the way it does when she bleeds, but that was a week ago, and something would be wrong if she was bleeding again now. No, this is the warmth of late nights thinking about Clint Barton’s arms and what his backside looks like in those britches of his.

She presses a hand to her belly, as though it might quiet the butterflies, and watches him lather his hands, rub at his neck, head bowed. She could do that, she thinks. Rub his shoulders.

So she does. Or tries to, at least. She strips to nothing, the summer breeze hot on her skin, and she pads to the waters edge, slowly lowers herself into the pool.

And gets in on the side with the steepest drop, with the deepest drop, and she gasps at how cold it is, clutching at the wall with both hands.

Clint jerks around, eyes wide, and Laura panics because his eyes are very blue, and she’s very naked.

‘This was a terrible idea,’ she says, and Clint chokes on his spit.

‘Yes!’ he agrees, sounding squeaky and not all like himself, ‘it was a little terrible!’

She kicks her feet a little, and it buoys her higher.

‘Get out of the water,’ Clint says. ‘This is dangerous. So - so - dangerous.’

It sounds like he’s thinking, and when Laura glances at him, she finds him staring at her back, her backside. She hopes, even with how poorly this is going, that he likes what he sees.

‘But I’m here now. I thought I might help.’

‘Help?’

‘You were bathing,’ she says, ‘I’m good at that.’

‘Bathing men?’

Something flashes across his face, like the curse but entirely human. Jealousy, she thinks, hopes. Jealousy that she might be spending her affections on other men.

‘Once or twice,’ she admits, ‘the guards are prone to injury while training.’

Clint does not look relieved, but he looks less upset by the revelation.

‘Oh,’ he says.

She hesitates, and then turns slightly, reaches for him with one hand.

‘I cannot swim,’ she says, and he frowns, keeps his eyes very resolutely on hers, and reaches for her hand.

‘Kick your feet,’ he says, ‘it’s shallower this side, you’ll be able to stand.’

‘And you’ll be able to look?’ she asks, trying to sound coy, sweet, but her teeth are chattering.

‘Laura,’ he starts, and then stops, yanks her hand and pulls her into his arms. ‘This was stupid. This water’s freezing, you’ll catch your death.’

‘But you’re warm,’ she says, blinks up at him and wraps her arms as tight about herself as she can. ‘Can’t you catch my death for me and give it a seeing to?’

‘You want me to fight death itself for you?’

‘A lady’s honour must be defended,’ she grins.

‘You’re standing naked with an escaped convict,’ he reminds her, ‘there is little honourable about that.’

She laughs, even though she’s still shivering, and Clint rubs her arms, up her shoulders and the back of her neck. Somewhere, his fingers find the end of her braids, undo the lot in barely a gesture. Her hair doesn’t tumble free and beautifully frame her face the way Heather’s does, because Natasha doesn’t do the princess’ hair to be easily undone by a wayward husband’s fingers, and so it takes a bit of teasing before her hair’s shaking loose, and it hangs damp against her neck, free for Clint to card his fingers through. She watches him the entire time, and when he realises she’s watching him, he flushes, and fumbles for an excuse.

‘I like it more when it’s down like this,’ he admits eventually, and Laura smiles, brushes her hand across his flushed cheeks.

‘I’ll remember that,’ she promises, barely more than a whisper, and Clint stares.

The water feels warmer now, a softer, lovelier sort of warm, the kind you never want to leave. Laura loosens her grip on herself and instead eases her hands around his waist. His breath catches in his throat, and she watches the colour flash in his eyes, a warning she has no reason yet to heed, because she has no need to believe it a threat. Even at his worst, he’d gotten himself away from her, away from the danger she created for him. Truth be told, Laura thinks she is more of a threat to him than he is to her.

‘Gods above,’ Clint sighs, resting their foreheads together, ‘you shouldn’t be here. I’m putting you in so much danger.’

Laura runs her hands up and down his sides, admiring the smoothness of his skin, splattered with freckles and the odd faded bruise, but otherwise the same shade of gold. She draws lines along his shoulders, where the sleeves of his jerkin had left his arms exposed to the sun more regularly. It’s sweet, the same the way the boys’ hands and forearms are more tanned than their biceps. He shivers, and she watches the way water dribbles down his chest from her fingertips.

‘You’re such a hazard,’ he sighs.

Her hand rests against his neck, against the fluttering pulse.

‘You’re the one wearing my broken necklace as a pendant,’ she teases, and he flushes.

‘I found it in the woods.’

‘I lost it that day I got nettle rash, do you remember?’

‘It was the last time I saw you,’ he says, and seems surprised at how steady his voice is. ‘Of course I remember. You asked where I was born.’

‘I did. I have a theory. But I can’t prove it just yet. I will, but I need to rethink it.’

‘I’m not sure I approve of all this science. You know there was once a man who was so curious, he had to change cities three times before he was finally caught and hung as a heretic?’

Laura frowns, rubs her hand against his nape, the other playing with the emerald around his neck.

‘No,’ she says, ‘but I wouldn’t be tried as a heretic for becoming a curse-breaker.’

Something in the air shifts, and Laura braces her hands against his shoulders and raises onto her toes, chin lifting in turn. Clint almost ducks down, almost kisses her, but something breaks in the woods, and deer burst through the underbrush only to turn back.

‘Wade,’ Clint groans.

At the same time, Laura sighs, ‘Monty.’

They look at each either and laugh and Clint hikes Laura up and out of the water and back by her clothes. He also takes a moment to look at her, but she doesn’t acknowledge that part.

As she struggles back into her dress, muslin clinging to wet skin, she looks back at him, still in the water with his arms folded on the pond wall, just watching her with something soft and fond on his face.

‘Like what you see?’ she asks, and finally jerks her dress the rest of the way.

‘Not so much now,’ he replies, giving her an over-exaggerated leer along the length of her body. ‘But yes, I like it a lot.’

‘Good. Maybe one day you’ll get to look for longer than a minute. It’s like Fate doesn’t want us together.’

‘Not Fate,’ Clint says. ‘Something else.’

Laura doesn’t ask what else, because she thinks she knows. It’s the same thing that’s been haunting her.

‘You know,’ she muses, doubling over to ruffle up his hair, ‘I’ll have to get you a favour, for when I next see you. If you’re going to fight my death for me like a heroic knight saving his damsel, you’ll need a Lady’s favour.’

Clint gets a look on his face, and Laura almost asks him what she said, but then Monty is calling for her.

‘I’d better go,’ she says. ‘I’ll – I’ll come back, I’ll come see you again, I promise.’

‘I’ll hold you to it!’ he calls after her, and she grins over her shoulder at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slight delay and the shortness of this chapter - I'm going on holiday tomorrow for a week to see my babe scarfloor!!!! So i've been busy packing for that and i won't get much (if any) writing done while i'm out there, so the next chapter's going to have a delay on it, but i'll make it extra long to make up for it, okay??? promise!!


	5. The Importance of Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The castle is invaded, and Laura realises something important.

‘There is someone to see you,’ Jarvis says, after knocking and entering upon receiving permission, a few afternoons after Laura’s first supervised outing to the woods to visit her hunter, ‘he’s with the king, but he’s requesting your presence, too.’

Laura frowns, and looks across at Steve, who’s sat with a book in his hand, but he’d stopped reading it when Jarvis entered, and is now frowning at Laura in return.

‘What’s his name?’ Laura asks.

‘Wolfgang von Strucker, I believe your father said. He claims to be a Baron from Bavaria.’

‘Bavaria?’ Laura and Steve echo in unison.

They have heard tales of Bavaria, and the madness that comes from that place. There has been a persistent tale told over the centuries of a Baron who had worn a mask to hide his face, only to have it stuck there by a fire melting his skin and the fabric both, and the madness such a thing caused. They say you can still hear him wailing over the horror of losing his family in the fire if you listen close enough to the mountains.

‘So he says. He’s waiting in the great hall when you’re ready.’

Laura nods, and tells Jarvis at they’ll be along presently.

‘I think we should get the rest of the Guard,’ Steve says, when he’s gone. ‘I don’t like the sound of this.’

She nods, and gets to her feet. Having Monty at the least would be nice, because Monty was raised to deal with these kinds of guests. Comparatively, the rest of the Guard were raised in a barn. She’s fairly certain that Dugan at least was born in one. But alas, Monty has returned home to the Falsworth estate, taking his wife with him. Their son has taken ill, so a missive said the morning after Laura’s outing, and Laura would not keep her cousin from his child – from her Godson – for all the wealth in York.

Steve tells them about the Baron from Bavaria when they arrive at the Guard’s room, where only Gabe, Jacques and Jim are sitting.

‘Bucky and Dugan are doing a patrol,’ Gabe explains when Steve queries the missing Guards. ‘We’ve been taking it in turns all morning, just in case there’s something that the main guard missed, since they managed to miss that stranger with the red hair. Bucky doesn’t want to take any chances, just in case anything like that happens again.’

‘Which is why we don’t have Laura alone anymore,’ Jim says, and Steve nods.

‘I want to know who it was at she saw,’ he says, ‘because there’s been no sign of him since. Or before, either. Nobody’s seen a red-haired man before.’

‘Maybe I imagined it,’ she offers, ‘I’m still struggling with sleeping after the nightmare, so maybe I did just see a servant, but his hair caught the light in just the wrong way.’

‘We can’t take that risk,’ Steve says. ‘We’ll take you back to Banner after we’ve dealt with this Baron fellow, and get you a different mix of that sleeping draught, so that you can try that one. This mix that you’ve got now clearly isn’t working properly.’

It’s been maybe a fortnight since the nightmare, and Laura still refuses, on a night-by-night basis, to sleep alone. Natasha often lies next to her until she succumbs to the effects of Doctor Banner’s sleeping draught, which he had been reluctant to give her until the sleeplessness of her fear had impacted upon her politics.

And, for what it was worth, had her falling asleep in her breakfast.

He’d give her the draught on a nightly basis, personally, to measure how much she took, and to be sure the effects were not wearing on her. As far as she and her immediate staff were concerned, the potion barely seems to work. She sleeps, but it’s fitful at best, disturbed at worst. He claims it stops the worst of his nightmares, but it doesn’t stop the monster from lurking in the shadows where she can’t quite see it, and when Natasha thinks that Laura is asleep, peacefully so, and she gets up to leave, to go back to her own bedchamber, or down the hall and across the landing to Doctor Wilson’s bedchamber, Laura will fit, and wake screaming.

 Banner insists that it’s the stronger potion he can make, but Steve isn’t convinced. Monty hasn’t stopped harping about it since he found out his cousin was taking a draught, and that’s partially why Laura had him return home. He cared a lot, and that was nice, but he also didn’t know what he was talking about.

‘Baron first,’ she says, with an agreeable nod, ‘and then Banner. I miss sleeping well.’

The most sleep she’s had in the past fortnight had been a lunch out in the gardens, a little picnic with the boys, and she’d fallen asleep cuddled up between Bucky and Dugan, her toes under Dugan’s back and her head on Bucky’s chest. It had been a peaceful sleep for all of an hour, because they’d been cloud-watching, and everything had seemed so right with the world that she didn’t think she’d have a nightmare. But the nightmare came all the same, and Laura had woken screaming and kicking Dugan in the belly until he’d managed to grab her ankles and Bucky her hands, holding her steady until she roused enough to remember where she was.

As soon as Bucky and Dugan are back from their patrol, a few minutes later, having been rounding it off when Steve and Laura arrived, they head to the great hall, where a man is sat in conversation with the King. He’s tall and in a dark coat, with a monocle and a closely-shaved head. He’s middle-aged, with the familiar craggy face of a man who’s lived a trying life.

In the first second of seeing him, as she strides into the room with her Guard flanking her, Laura hates him. Something about the expression on his face twists her belly, and she swallows thickly, throws her shoulders back.

‘Good morning, sir,’ she says, with a nod. ‘Apologies for the delay, I had to wait for my Guard to finish their patrol. Recent assassination attempts, you understand. We don’t trust anyone.’

The Baron does not look offended. He looks amused, almost, and he rises to bow to her.

‘Your Highness,’ he says, ‘you look as lovely as they say. The poets speak highly of your heart of molten gold, and there are sonnets about the way your eyes glow for it.’

‘The poets can write sonnets all they wish,’ she says, taking her seat at her father’s left, ‘it changes nothing about my need for protection.’

‘That is, in part, why I am here,’ he says, stepping forward, and Laura frowns.

Beside her, Steve’s shoulders tighten. The other Guard have dispersed around the room, as they do whenever they’re in the great hall, and Laura watches them all shift, ready to leap onto him and flatten him to the floor.

‘The Baron Strucker has a proposal for us,’ the King says, and Laura turns her head but doesn’t take her eyes from Strucker. ‘He has worked with magic to create a completely controllable guard.’

‘That sounds suspicious,’ Laura says, and turns her gaze to her father for a second. ‘I don’t understand why anyone would mess with magic. The Fair Folk do not allow humans to play with their gifts for good reason. Magic cannot be controlled.’

‘That is what they tell you,’ Strucker says, ‘so that you are in awe of it, so that you _fear_ it. But I have beaten that fear, Your Highness. I have worked closely with a certain Doctor List, to harness the power of Fair Magic, and to use it to empower individuals that they might serve their purpose better. Be it as part of your Guard, or as a member of the army, or even as a barmaid, in some lower-class town.’

Laura takes a breath, huffing it out of her nose in blatant disregard for what he’s saying.

‘I don’t believe in that kind of thing,’ she says, ‘magic should stay in the hands of the Fair Folk. We cannot fully understand it to harness it.’

‘What backwards thinking!’ Strucker crows.

‘Mind your tongue,’ Dugan snaps from across the room, but the King waves him down, as Laura is ignoring him.

‘Let us hear the Baron out,’ he says, ‘he has proof that his experiments with magic have worked.’

‘Does he now.’

Discomfort is rolling off of Steve in waves; magic made him what he is, a Blessing from Peggy that he had not asked for and did not understand, and one that he does not wish to understand for the world. To have harnessed that kind of power, it terrifies him. But it terrifies Laura too, and she watches the Baron get to his feet to go to an antechamber and lean around the door.

‘I have twins,’ he says, ‘whom willingly involved themselves in the experiments, and whom have come out of it with powers like those given as Blessings.’

Laura shifts in her chair; the King and Jason, who has been sat in conspicuous silence, lean forward in interest. Laura gives her brother a filthy look over their father’s shoulders, but like always, she goes ignored. Jason acts as though his sister doesn’t exist, and so she acts, for the most part, as though he doesn’t either, and then moments like this happen, where he acts so unlike their mother, whom he purports to base his life around –

Their mother would be disgusted. Queen Louise would have had Strucker hung, drawn and quartered the moment he set foot on the castle grounds proclaiming to have harnessed magic, and Laura doesn’t know what to do about the unfolding revelation that her father and brother not only do not care that the Baron is playing with very literal fire and has brought that fire into their home, but that they are actively endorsing it. They want this power for their own, she realises, and turns a horrified glance to Steve, who looks at her with equal horror in the tightness of his eyes.

‘This is wrong,’ she whispers, and Jason glances at her over their father’s shoulders.

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he says, ‘this could change the way of the world. This could render your Guards obsolete; this could change how you are protected.’

‘My Guard will never be obsolete,’ she hisses, and turns her back on him.

The twins, when Strucker presents them, look inhumman. They are barely grown, young teenagers at best, children at worst, and there is something wrong about their faces, something pinched tight and starved, and Laura is out of her chair before anyone can stop her. Their eyes shine the same way Clint’s do, though the girl’s eyes shine red and the boy’s a different shade of blue. It’s a sad thing, staring at the children, because there is something hungry in their gaze, something desperate that clings to them. It’s something that Laura doesn’t know, but she recognises, and she clenches her fists.

‘You’re a disgrace,’ she spits, storming in Strucker’s direction, ‘how dare you!’

Before she can reach him, the twins step in front of him, blocking Laura from getting in touching distance. She debates, for a second and a half, throwing herself at them, but then Dugan and Gabe are there, holding her arms and keeping her in place.

‘Laura,’ the King says, ‘sit down. The Baron is still speaking.’

‘Speaking?’ she screeches, twisting her head to look at her father. ‘You call this speaking? He is a monster!’

The King takes a breath the same way he used to take a breath when the Queen circumvented him to make a decision he didn’t agree with. It’s not a pleasant breath, and Laura glares.

‘Laura,’ he starts, and then stops, reconsiders what he was going to say. ‘Perhaps you should leave, if you’re going to act like a commoner.’

Dugan’s fingers tighten to the point of pain, and Laura bites back her snarl, lets Gabe guide her back to her chair. Strucker smiles, but it looks less like a smile and more like someone’s ripped his lips off.

‘These are the pinnacle of my tests,’ he says, ‘a perfect example of what we wanted out of the experiment. They are perfectly docile, and can be trained to recognise whatever friend or foe you choose. If they’re to be deployed in battle, they work best together, with him as a distraction and her as the driving force behind the assault.’

‘Him,’ Laura sniffs. ‘Her. Him and her, him and her. They have names, _sir_! Don’t you think it would be best that you use them?’

Strucker pauses for half a second, and Steve’s hands clamp very hard on Laura’s shoulders, pin her to her chair.

‘Stay there,’ he whispers, and Laura’s nails start scraping against the arms of her chair.

‘You don’t know their names?’ she crows. ‘You don’t know their names! You’re a - a - I hereby declare that these twins are wards of the state.’

‘You cannot make that decision,’ the King says. ‘You do not have that authority.’

Strucker continues to sneer.

‘I have every authority,’ Laura bites, not taking her eyes from the twins. ‘It’s what my mother would have done.’

It’s designed to upset him, and it works.

‘Excuse us for a moment,’ the King says, and gets up to drag Laura by the wrist into an antechamber.

Though the walls are thick, and nobody in the room has moved closer to the door, they can hear the muffled yelling.

‘I will not allow this cruelty!’ Laura bellows, ‘if Doctor Banner is not allowed to test his draughts on people, how dare this supposed Baron be allowed to test _curses_ on children!’

There is something said that makes Laura screech. Not scream, but screech, in a way that makes the twins flinch. It’s inhuman in its agonised rage, and Bucky launches to his feet from where he’d been sat on the floor with Lucky.

‘Bucky, no,’ Steve murmurs, gestures the Sergeant back.

The twins clutch each other’s hands.

‘I don’t care if they’re from Sokovia or from our own staff!’ she screeches. ‘They are people, whether they have an address or not! And people do not deserve to be treated this way!’

There’s some quieter arguing, and the Queen’s Guard glance at each other before the door slams open and Laura storms back into the hall.

‘The twins are staying here,’ she declares, chin up and shoulders back. ‘You are free to leave as of now, Baron Strucker.’

The King does not leave the antechamber until after Strucker has gone and Laura has sent Jim to the kitchen with instructions for Miss Martinelli to prepare a light lunch with soft food for the twin’s bellies.

They’re about to head to a smaller room to dine when the King walks past them in complete silence. They watch him go and stay standing there staring at the slammed door some minutes later, waiting for him to come storming back in, but nothing comes.

‘I’d say you upset him,’ Gabe snorts.

‘He can be upset all he likes,’ Laura sniffs, and turns to the twins. ‘Do you speak Yorkish at all? I can send for someone who understands Sokovian if I have to.’

‘We speak small York,’ the girl says, and Laura’s smile makes the boy smile, reflexive.

‘Good! Good, that’s good. I’ll have a Sokovian translator brought in all the same, but this is good news! Can you tell me your names? I’m Laura, I am the Princess of York, these are Captain Steven Rogers, Sergeant James Barnes, but we call him Bucky, Privates James Morita and Gabriel Jones, and Sergeant Timothy Dugan. They form the Queen’s Guard; they’re my personal protection.’

The girl looks at them standing there with disdain, and the boy seems curious, but impartial.

‘We are Wanda and Pietro Maximoff,’ she says. ‘We are from – we are Sokovia.’

Laura nods. ‘I know. I apologise for Baron Strucker. He had no right to kidnap you.’

Wanda frowns at her hands, clenched into red gleaming fists. ‘Not your fault,’ she says, though it looks painful to do so.

‘When I am Queen,’ she says, ‘I’ll have all this sorted. I’ve already written up policies about human trafficking, and we’ll work to ensure that there is no trafficking in our kingdom or our allies’.’

Pietro frowns.

‘King is not old,’ he says, and gnaws at his lip, searches hard for the words. ‘Long years until you turn Queen.’

Laura feels something warm blossom in her chest, and smiles.

‘There will be a long time before I am Queen,’ she says, ‘but if I marry, then I will be Queen of another kingdom, and my ties to this one will allow me to enforce policies here too.’

‘Politics doesn’t work like that,’ Steve says.

‘When I am Queen, it will,’ Laura tells him, and turns her nose up.

It gets a laugh from Pietro, and Wanda even manages a small smile.

‘Miss Martinelli’s bringing food around,’ Jim announces out of nowhere, crashing through the doors back into the hall. ‘I told her we’d be in your dining room.’

It isn’t actually Laura’s dining room, because Laura dines, on a day-to-day basis, with her father and brother in their main dining room, but this one that Jim has them go to is a small, comfortable room in deep, earthy green and mahogany, a room of Laura’s favoured colours, and she relaxes a little on entering the room. It’s peaceful here, in a way the other dining rooms aren’t. There certainly isn’t room for them all at the table, but the boys don’t mind. Jacques and Gabe go to the window to peer out, and Gabe and Bucky flank the door, standing ramrod-straight with their hands at their sides, ready to pounce into action. Laura smiles at them, and gestures for the twins to sit while the rest of the boys make themselves comfortable in Steve and Bucky’s case, and scarce in Jim’s.

Miss Martinelli brings the food personally, soup and soft bread, freshly-baked biscuits still warm from the oven, just-brewed tea and sandwiches. Laura thanks her, hand on the cook’s arm and smile warm.

‘Anything you want, Your Highness,’ Miss Martinelli says, ‘you just gotta ask. You’re my Peggy’s favourite, and I ain’t wantin’ to be on her bad side when she sees you wantin’.’

The twins stare at the woman, and Laura sends her on her way with thanks aplenty, smiling to herself at the matched expression on their faces.

‘Don’t stand on ceremony,’ she says, and gestures at the trays. ‘Help yourselves.’

The two prove themselves ravenous, and Laura feels a rush of contentment to see them stuff their faces full of bread. It melts some of the anger gnawing at her belly, but it doesn’t remove it. It just melts, and curdles like sour milk.

She asks them questions, as they eat, and they do their best to answer them. Gabe manages to pick up some of the language.

‘It’s not far from what they speak in Tsaritsyn,’ he says, ‘we might be able to use Miss Romanov as a translator, until you find a real speaker.’

Laura nods, and sends Bucky to fetch her.

Natasha’s hair is a mess, but she meets Laura’s arch look with one of her own.

‘You called for me?’ she asks, and Laura nods.

‘Yes, yes, please, if you can, help translate Pietro and Wanda’s words for me.’

Natasha promises to do her best.

Laura learns enough about the twins that she feels sick to the stomach, and the crack of knuckles when Bucky clenches his fists suggests that there is something similar curdling in the Guardsmen’s bellies, too. Wanda can read minds, so she says, and picks out thoughts that they all have, separate of each other, private thoughts they’d not shared aloud. Laura is glad that Wanda picks out thoughts of her mother to share, and not thoughts of Clint. Pietro is fast. Fast enough that when he races around the room to prove his speed, Laura cannot see him. She laughs, and claps her hands, and Pietro looks for a second like he might burst into tears, like their curses have never been applauded in such a way before.

‘Your eyes glow when you do anger,’ Wanda says, and Laura blinks, taken aback.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Your eyes,’ Wanda says, and gestures at her own, shining red and glittering like rubies in starlight. ‘When you do anger, they glow. Honey. Gold.’

 ‘Oh,’ Laura says, and rubs at her eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’

Pietro is staring at her the way new servant boys stare at her the first time they see her.

‘You are painting,’ he says, slow and with a frown as he struggles for the words, ‘in city. Strucker showed us. Said you are – are – Crown Jewel.’

‘I’ve been known by that name,’ she nods, as the boys titter behind her. ‘When I was a baby, I was adored by the kingdom.’

‘You still are,’ Gabe reminds her, and she waves him away. ‘No seriously, have you been in Lower Town recently? They’re outdoing themselves getting ready for your birthday week’s festivities. They really want to celebrate you this year, but no one’s quite saying why.’

Laura suspects they all have their own theory as to why that is, and she has a few of her own within seconds of Gabe finishing talking.

‘We have no Princess,’ Pietro says, ‘Sokovia. No Princess. Or King. Just us. Just Sokovia.’

Laura nods, and reaches for a biscuit, breaking it apart but not eating it. ‘Just Sokovia,’ she echoes. ‘I am so sorry that Strucker did what he did. Curses are not something to mess with.’

‘Not curse,’ Wanda says. ‘It is not Blessed. We are weapon. To fight curse.’

‘To fight?’ Laura asks, and turns to Natasha. ‘Ask them about that, get more information. What does that mean? Fighting a curse?’

Natasha nods, and leans forward across the table, uses her native tongue as simply as she can, and it seems to translate well enough that the twins understand. Natasha frowns as she struggles to decipher their rapid, rambling replies, overlapping each other as they babble, determined to get as much information across as they can.

Eventually, she says, ‘I don’t understand what they mean by fighting a curse. I caught something about Strucker using the magic as a way to combat those who are cursed. As though he’s preparing for a war. I definitely understood that part; there is a war Strucker is preparing for. But I don’t understand what their part is. I’m not entirely sure they do either.’

Laura frowns and eventually, she shakes her head.

‘They are here now,’ she says, with a self-satisfied nod of her head. ‘They’re here and Strucker is not, and that is enough, I think. We can undo what Strucker has taught them; teach them a different way of life, a different way to exist. We can do that. And perhaps Peggy can find a way to undo what was done to them.’

Steve does not seem convinced. In fact, none of them do. Laura isn’t particularly convinced either; Fair magic is not made to be undone, and if Strucker has warped it to fit his own ends – if he has truly harnessed its power as a man, there is no telling what damage it could do a living thing.

Laura has Dugan go and find adjoining rooms for the twins to stay in, and he comes back like a bear with a sore head, grumbling about her brother.

‘I’ll handle my brother,’ she says, though they all know Laura will avoid her brother as much as possible. There have been weeks where they haven’t seen hide nor hair of each other, and she would rather that than have dinner with him. ‘You just take the twins to their rooms, and make sure there is a good maid assigned to them. You know the girls I approve of.’

Dugan nods, and gestures for the twins to follow him. They both reach for Laura before they go, squeeze her offered hands tightly, and she watches them leave with something like a smile on her face.

As Laura walks back to her chambers with Natasha and Steve, she asks, ‘did you look at my father?’

Steve nods, and Natasha hums.

‘His eyes,’ she says, ‘they were blue.’

‘They were blue,’ Laura echoes, and swipes a finger under her own eye, gold with the residual anger still burning in her chest. ‘They were blue.’

Her father had always had brown eyes, the same brown Laura had been born with, until Peggy’s Blessing turned them gold.

* * *

It’s storming again, a bad one, lashing rain with lightning from horizon to horizon. Laura startles awake with a yell, half-muffled into her pillow, and she throws herself upright at a rumble of thunder close enough to rattle her balcony doors. Bucky appears in the open doorway, hand on the duelling pistol at his belt. It’s not loaded, she knows, because Bucky is no longer allowed, after a very unfortunate incident involving Lord Malick and a disagreement about the exact placement of a bullet in his left buttock, to have a loaded pistol on his person.

Not that he should need a loaded pistol when he’s perfectly capable of throwing the knife in his boot into a man’s eyesocket at twenty paces. He practices on that painting of Lord Pierce in the drawing room.

‘Laura?’ he asks, and crosses to brush her hair from her face with both hands. ‘Nightmare?’

She nods, and rests against his warm palms for a moment, eyes shut and just breathing the smell of him in. He smells the way he always smells; tobacco and tea and sweat, something warm and bitter but so familiar as to be sweet. It’s not a nice smell, but she doesn’t care, and hasn’t cared for years.

‘I want to – take me to Barton,’ she whispers, and he doesn’t reply for so long she thinks she was drowned out by the thunder.

‘What?’ he whispers back, and his nose wrinkles.

‘Buck – I can’t sleep like this, I can’t – I just want – maybe a change of location will help, I don’t know. But I just want – I just want to see him.’

‘It’s an hour ride,’ he says.

And then, resigned, ‘Steve’s gonna kick my ass. Get your shoes and your cloak.’

Laura kisses his hands and hurries to get her things.

Bucky holds her hand tight while he sneaks her down the stairs and through to the stables.

‘You like getting me into trouble,’ he says as he saddles his horse.

‘You’ve been getting yourself into trouble since before we met,’ she snorts, and gasps when he lifts her up in front of the saddle.

Swinging himself up into the saddle behind her, Bucky snorts, and tucks his coat around her, tells her to tuck in.

‘It’s a long ride, and it’s wet,’ he says, and eases Roo out of the stable and onto the path to the castle gate.

Being the middle of the night, the gate is shut, but Bucky hasn’t spent ten years sneaking out of the castle to not know how to fit a horse through a wicket. Once they’re out on the path into the woods, Bucky kicks his heels and eases Roo into a canter, taking them deeper into the woods. Laura keeps herself tucked as tight against Bucky as she can, her head under his chin and her hands under his coat, tucked against his belly and kept warm and dry by the heat of him trapped there.

‘Do you know where we’re going?’ he asks, ‘do you know where Barton will be at this time of night?’

She shakes her head, ‘no, but he’ll know I’m here. He’ll come and find me.’

Her cloak and dress are soaked through, and her hair is plastered to her face and neck, like she’d fallen face-first into a pond, and she pulls Bucky to a stop near the pool she’d found Clint at a fortnight ago.

‘Go back,’ she says, ‘come and get me in the morning.’

‘I’m not going until I see Barton with you,’ he says, ‘there are bandits in the wood, Laura, for fuck sake.’

‘Bandits aren’t the concern,’ Clint says, appearing from between the trees like he’d been waiting there for them. ‘They don’t dare come this close to the castle, or to me. The wolves, on the other hand.’

‘There are wolves?’ Laura asks, and pulls her cloak tight around herself, as if it might conserve the last of her body heat.

Deep in the woods as they are, there’s barely any rain, but Laura is still dripping wet, and not looking to get dry any time soon.

‘We live in a five-day trek of a forest,’ Clint tells her with a snort. ‘You really believe there aren’t wolves?’

‘Have you ever fought a wolf?’ she asks, but goes ignored because Bucky’s talking over her, demanding to know that she will be kept safe until morning.

‘I swear,’ Clint says, and crosses himself, like religion means anything to him now. ‘I’ll have her waiting for you first thing in the morning. An hour after dawn at the latest, we’ll be here, waiting for your arrival.’

Bucky nods, and ducks to kiss Laura’s temple.

‘Behave,’ he whispers, and Laura snorts.

‘I never behave,’ she says with a sleepy smile, ‘you should know that by now.’

He laughs, kisses her temple again and waits for Clint to lift her down, before he turns the horse back and kicks his heels. Soon, the sound of cantering has faded into the rainy hush of the forest. They stand there for a few moments, watching the space where Bucky had been. But the moment is broken by the sudden crash of thunder not far from them, lightning sparking above the trees. Laura jumps, and then shivers, the movement doing little but reminding her of how cold she is.

‘Come on,’ Clint says, as if realising for the first time that she’s soaked to the bone, ‘we’d best get you inside. I’ll get you back to the cottage, and then I’ll have to finish hunting.’

Laura peeks up at him from under her hood. ‘You have a cottage? Here in the woods? How have I never found it? I thought I knew all these acres.’

Clint starts to walk, leaving Laura to trot after him, and eventually he says, ‘Peggy Blessed – I suppose that’s the word – it to be hidden from most people’s gazes. It was originally a – friend’s cottage, but I inherited it.’

‘How does the spell know who can see it and who can’t?’

‘It was based on who my friend loved most. Those who were dear to her.’

‘You were dear to her?’ she asks, and feels something foolish knot in her chest.

It’s like the moths, but colder, too many lemon ices lodging between her ribs.

‘I was,’ he nods, because there’s no avoiding it. ‘But she’s been dead for a long time now.’

‘Three hundred years,’ Laura murmurs, and Clint leaps.

‘No,’ he chuckles, but it’s fake laughter at best. ‘I’m not that old.’

He’s a liar, and a poor one at that, but Laura lets him have it.

‘All right,’ she says, and tries her best not to frown, clutches her cloak tighter about herself like it might hide the unhappiness working its way into her expression and posture.

It doesn’t work very well, because Clint eyes her and then says, ‘does it bother you? That I was dear to someone else?’

‘No,’ she says, and it almost sounds like the truth. ‘It’s not that.’

‘I’m older than I look, don’t get me wrong,’ Clint says then, frowning himself. ‘But I don’t think even the healthiest man could live to be three centuries.’

Laura supposes not, but finds it hard to believe anyway. The curse is so apparent, and she doesn’t understand why he pretends like he’s not frozen in time. There’s something in his accent, something in the way he carries himself, that even if she wasn’t watching his eyes glow like stars in the shadow of the moon, she’d know there was something about him that wasn’t quite human. Something cursed.

‘How old are you, then?’

‘Twenty-nine.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘It’s true, you know.’

They walk in silence for a few minutes, and then Laura stops, and after a few paces Clint stops too.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘If the cottage is Blessed to be visible only to your friend’s dear ones,’ she starts, and looks at him with a crease in her brow. ‘Then how will I see it? I have no idea what your dear one’s name was, never mind knew her personally to be dear to her. I will not be able to see the cottage.’

Clint looks as if he hadn’t considered this – no, no – he looks as though he’s trying to look like he hadn’t considered this.

‘I have a thought or three,’ he admits, ‘about that. I think you might be able to see it.’

‘How?’ she demands, and skips the few steps between them so they can continue walking. ‘How would I see the dear cottage of a dear woman that I am not dear to?’

‘Because you’re dear to me.’

Oh.

‘Oh,’ she says, and says no more.

They walk in silence from then on, and after another few minutes, Laura’s fingers sneak out from the fold of her cloak to seek out Clint’s hand, lacing their fingers together and holding it tight. It sends the butterflies into a frenzy to have Clint squeeze her hand back, and he has a smile playing at the corner of her mouth when she glances up at him, but he keeps hold of her hand, swings it a little as they walk. Admittedly, she’s holding his hand more to keep herself upright and walking than anything else, because the ride’s tired her out, and she wants nothing more than to just shut her eyes, but at least like this Clint is keeping her moving.

If it wasn’t raining and the middle of the night, and if she wasn’t bone-tired, Laura thinks she might find it a wonderful walk – not that it isn’t a wonderful walk now, of course, but there is a wonder in walking in mid-morning sunshine over dry paths that don’t squelch cold and wet against her toes with each step.

‘There,’ Clint says, after almost twenty minutes of walking, as he comes to a stop and starts pointing.

Laura looks to where he’s gesturing, and her breath catches.

The cottage is small, to be sure, little more than one large room, but it’s sweet, made of natural stone and thatch, with a wooden door and small windows, wood stained dark with age. The thatch has moss on it, and ivy growing up around the door.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she says, and takes a breath, pushes her hood back to look at it properly.

It’s still storming, and the clearing the cottage is sitting in leaves her completely exposed to the rain, but she lets go of Clint’s hand to walk around the building, taking it in and touching the flowers growing not far from the back wall. They look natural, an unarranged, hodgepodge mix of perennials, and she thinks that’s probably sweeter than the cottage itself. Clint clearly hasn’t planted any of the flowers growing here, but they’re here all the same.

‘Laura? Come inside, before you catch cold.’

She hurries around the corner to where Clint is waiting for her, holding the door open, like a gentleman. Even the boys don’t hold doors open for her.

 Granted, this is because there are servants to hold doors open for her, but that’s beside the point.

So she curtsies to him, tucking one foot behind the other and bending her knees nicely, and Clint laughs, bows to her as she passes.

The cottage smells of him, rust and sweat and leather, and of the burnt smell of roasted meat, and she smiles at the mess he’s made.

Flushing to the roots of his hair, he lets the door slam shut behind him as he hurries to clean up clothes and crockery and the remnants of his work. The mat in front of the fireplace is covered in animal skins and bones and tools, and he kicks it all into a corner to throw a few logs into the fireplace, and Laura watches him light touch-paper with flint and a knife he pulls from the mantel. It’s very different to how she sees Heather light the fire in her bedroom, and she hums softly to herself as the fire catches.

‘There,’ he nods to himself and straightens. In the low light the fire is producing, he seems imposing, too big for the room, and Laura is tempted to tuck herself under his arm, because he seems big enough to protect her from the monster haunting her dreams.

But instead she stands there staring at nothing in particular with heavy-lidded eyes as he finishes pottering about the cottage, tidying it up and giving her room to move without tripping over herself.

‘Take your cloak and dress off,’ he says, hauling an empty clothes horse toward the fire, ‘they should be dry by morning.’

When it doesn’t get a reaction, he glances over at her again, and she startles back to herself at the feeling of fingers brushing her cheek.

‘Laura?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, and shakes her head, brushes her hair away from her neck to get at the clap of her sodden cloak.

The weight leaving her shoulders is nice, more of a relief than she thought it would be, and she sighs softly once Clint’s got it hung up to dry.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asks, ‘you’re not yourself.’

‘I’m exhausted,’ she admits, and doesn’t protest him moving behind her to get at the buttons of her nightgown, his fingers burning hot against the chill of her skin. ‘I’ve been having the most terrible nightmares the past fortnight or so. I have a draught every night to help me sleep, but it barely feels like it works. I almost don’t remember the last time I had a full night’s sleep.’

‘A nightmare?’ he asks, and eases his fingers under the back of her gown, over her shoulders to work it off. ‘What kind of nightmare?’

‘It’s always the same,’ she murmurs, and obligingly shuffles the muslin off her arms before gripping one of his forearms so that she can step out of the nightgown. ‘There’s always a dark shadow and blue – there’s just blue as far as I can see – it’s as though – have you ever seen a lake that’s frozen over in the winter? It’s like that, it’s that sort of endless blue. And it’s always so cold and quiet, like all the air has left me, like I can’t scream, no matter how I try.’

Clint is frowning over her shoulder when she turns to look at him, folding her arms over her chest, and she takes the opportunity to tuck into his chest, pressing her face against the well-worn leather of his jerkin, breathing the smell in. He’s a little damp, and he smells like wet foliage, but he still smells like leather and sweat and it’s – it’s nice.

‘Blue?’ he asks.

‘Mm, like ice.’

His arms wrap around her, and hold her close. He’s warm, like the fire beside them, and when he kisses her hair, it sends a tingle rushing down her spine like a droplet of hot water. Slowly, his fingers dig into the bare skin of her back, close to the curve of her hip, and it stings, but in the same way Dugan picking her up stings, the pressure of warm strength and gentle concern. It’s so comforting, in a way she hadn’t expected it to be, that she bursts into over-tired tears.

‘I wish I could help,’ he says, quiet, rubbing her back, and she shakes her head, plays with the buckle at his belly.

‘It’s nothing you can solve,’ she chokes out when she’s done crying, ‘eventually, Doctor Banner will mix the draught in a way that works for me. For now, I will have to sleep poorly.’

‘Sleep here,’ he says, ‘nothing can find you here, except me. And I’m already here.’

‘I don’t want to sleep,’ she protests with a pathetic sniffle, ‘I want to spend time with you.’

‘I need to finish hunting,’ he tells her, ‘I have traps out, and I need to get them back in before the King hunts on the morrow.’

‘My father won’t be hunting tomorrow,’ she says, ‘if the storm stays until dawn, he’ll not go. He hates hunting on muddy days.’

Clint doesn’t look convinced, and Laura supposes he knows what goes on in the woods better than she does.

‘Try and sleep,’ he says, leaning back enough to brush her hair from her face, rearranging it pointlessly around her shoulders, ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

He flicks her nose, and cups her cheek to press a kiss to her brow, feeling very much the same as when Bucky kisses her brow, but there’s a heavier heat to it, something that burns in her ribs, and she reminds herself to breathe, shaky and tight.

‘Don’t be long,’ she tells him, and there’s something tight in her throat as she says it, something longing and desperate, and her feet follow him to the door, taking the rest of her with them.

It says something, she thinks, that he turns back to rake her head to toe with his eyes as she stands in the doorway watching him go. Maybe he likes the view of her in the doorway to his home, naked and wet and watching him watching her. But then he disappears between the trees, and she shuts the door.

* * *

Clint is trying very, very hard to not think about Laura being naked in his house, because he’s working on finding all of his traps, and he doesn’t want to get jumped by a particularly angry maimed wolf. His attempts aren’t for nothing, because as soon as he hears the door shut and he can’t smell her skin any longer, he has to take a minute to just sit on the floor and breathe through his fangs. His scales ache at his skin, and he’s glad he didn’t wear a shirt, because the linen would be ruined by the blood of it all, which would just upset her even more, and she’s already on edge.

She’s been taking the curse rather well, he thinks, as he finds another of his traps, snapped shut around the leg of a hare, and notches an arrow to end its suffering. Laura seems completely aware that he’s cursed, and if what Matthew has said is true, then she knows which curse it is, what he did to become cursed.

He breathes, and refocuses his gaze on the hare, arrow whistling for a second before it hits its mark deep in the hare’s neck.

As he pulls the arrow free and cleans it off, tucks it back into the quiver on his belt, he considers Laura’s seeming acceptance of his curse. By rights, she should be terrified of him; his ineptitude got the Faulkner Princess killed, and over the past three centuries, he’s been responsible for the deaths of over a hundred princesses. By rights, she should have sent those Guards of hers after him, or even that Lady-in-Waiting of hers, whom Wade insists is from that school in Tsaritsyn all those miles away, designed solely to deal with people like him.

And yet, she seeks him out with clear eyes and a diamond smile, and every time she comes crashing into the woods, he finds her within minutes.

‘Gods above,’ he sighs, and knots a string around the hare’s feet, slinging it and the hare on the other end around his neck.

He’s been gone a half-hour; with any luck, Laura will have gone to sleep, or at the least, tried to rest. There is little for her to do in the cottage alone. He has no legible books for her to read, and he doubts she knows much about animal skins or the tools he uses to obtain said skins to do anything with them.

By the time he returns, the storm has washed away almost all traces of the Princess from around the cottage, and Clint stands outside for several seconds just watching and listening and breathing, determining whether the traces of her are because it’s him and he can smell her a mile off in a soft breeze, or if a human could sense her too. It’s because he knows she’s there, he decides, because he knows to look and listen and breathe.

Inside, in the dry, she permeates everything, and he freezes, swallows. During his time outside the cottage, she’d taken the initiative to rearrange her clothes on the cockeyed horse near the fire, and had crawled into his mostly unused bed and gone to sleep. She’s regal in sleep, soft-browed with her hair haloing about her head. Wrapped up in every blanket he thinks he owns, he finds himself tripping over his own feet as he steps into the cottage properly, because the realisation hits him, once again, at the view of her soft-skinned, bare shoulder, that she is naked beneath that pile of sheets, the way a man’s wife is naked on their wedding night, and breathing becomes very difficult. He forces himself to breathe some more, to swallow the curse. Even if she weren’t a princess, even if he wasn’t fighting every inch of his body and feeling the push and pull and ache of his wings under his skin, even if, he’d be having difficulty breathing. She’s beautiful, and he can see where the suns taken to her, the gold of her skin as gold as her eyes. They’ve been shining gold more recently, the smell of Peggy’s magic clinging close to her shoulders like rosewater on her neck, and he almost misses the gingerbread brown of her eyes, but knows he’d miss the honey gold more.

She must be more exhausted than he thought her, for she doesn’t even stir at his stumbling.

He smiles, fond, and deposits his hunt on the mat before moving to check her clothes. Damp, still unsuitable to be worn. She’ll fall ill if she puts them on now. He considers offering her a spare shirt, like he knows any man in the kingdom would do – hell, most men in the kingdom would give her the shirts off their backs and sew them into a new dress for her – but he doesn’t think he’d be able to survive having his scent all over her skin. It would stick, heavier than man’s, older, more permanent. She’d carry it for months, and he’s not sure that’s a safe plan. Especially with these nightmares of hers.

So he doesn’t offer her a shirt.

He sits at the mat, with his back to the fire – stoked to keep it going while she slumbers – and pulls the hares towards him. He can set a stew to cooking while he waits for morning, and like this, he can watch her.

Only under duress will he admit he watches her more than he does his hands. After three hundred years, he doesn’t much need to watch what his hands are doing, because he knows how to skin hares. He only nicks his fingers thrice, but that’s because he’s thinking about her nightmares, and not because she rolls over and twists the blankets and he gets an unfettered view of her back from her nape to the dimples at the base of her spine.

Her nightmare is concerning, and he gnaws at the inside of his cheeks as he considers how best to handle it. He could call for Peggy, but he doubts that Peggy isn’t already aware of the nightmare, and what could Peggy do, besides put the girl into an enchanted sleep? It wouldn’t help her overmuch, besides open her heart to more abuse by the fucking _bastard_ that had her subject to the nightmare in the first place.

The guilt curdles in his belly. It’s his fault that she’s become a target, become prey. It’s all his fault and he has nobody to blame but himself. He could have ignored her that first day in the forest. He could have kept on walking past her horse’s tracks – could have gone the other direction in fact! – and then none of this would be happening. She would be safe away from him, and she would have no idea that he and his curse exist.

Laura sniffles, and he gets up to tuck her back in.

Hares skinned and stew on the spit, he gets up to kick his boots off and strip out of his jerkin and pull on a shirt, because for all the heat coming out of the fire, the floor is cold. It’s cold and hard and uncomfortable, but he lies there anyway, because he needs to sleep, or at least doze, if he’s going to have the wits to face off against Laura’s bodyguards in the morning.

Using a spare shirt as a pillow, he settles down, and stares at the fire, listening to Laura breathe. It’s a steady sort of breathing, a gentle, deep in-and-out that never ceases. It’s a comfort, and for all his heart pounds like rabbit feet against his ribs, he finds his breathing easing into the same rhythm, and his eyelids grow heavier with every slower breath, until finally they’re falling shut, and he drifts.

His dreams are quiet, what of them he has; Laura’s fingers in his hair and her hands against old injuries long-healed, the pitter-patter of light feet and paws against hardwood and stone. He dreams of the molten gold of her eyes shining bright in pre-dawn sunlight and the gentle shush of natural water, the smell of freshly washed bedlinen, soap-warm and white as snow.

Laura gasps, and he wakes with a start, finds her hand on his hip, trembling.

‘Clint?’ she whispers, and he automatically takes her hand, almost drags her out of bed with the way he pulls at it, pulling her hand up towards his heart and tucking it under his other arm.

‘You’re fine,’ he whispers back, glancing up at her to find her pale and wide-eyed, staring down at him from over the side of the bed, ‘you’re fine. I’ve got you.’

His heart is kicking still, a fluttering moth against her palm, pressed flush beneath the weight of his hand on her knuckles, but she doesn’t move it, shuffles a little lower on the bed to take the stretch out. His head drops back onto the wadded-up shirt, and he hears her shuffle some more, getting comfortable with her hand trapped. Her other touches his arm, strokes fond against the curve of his elbow before retreating.

Some minutes later, as he drifts half-in and half-out of sleep, he hears her fall asleep again, breathing evening out and arm losing tension under his. In the morning, when he wakes properly to the first rays of the sun finally breaking the clouds left behind in the aftermath of the storm, he finds himself curled around her, her head tucked under his chin and his leg thrown over hers, keeping her tucked into him and safe beneath his limbs and the pile of blankets she’s dragged off the bed with her. It’s not a comfortable position, and the arm she’s lying on has gone completely numb, but he breathes in the storm-damp smell of her hair and feels the beat of her heart against his chest and wouldn’t move for the world.

For a few moments, he lies there, playing with the tangles of her hair, and then he presses a kiss to her crown, and gently eases her away.

She sniffles, and curls into the patch of floor he’d just been lying on. She doesn’t look comfortable, but she’s resting, and that’s good enough for him. He’ll have to rouse her in a minute, to get her back to where he’d left her Sergeant, and he’s probably going to have the rest of the Guard there as well.

The fire died overnight, but there was enough heat to dry out her nightgown and her cloak, and he checks them both thoroughly. Can’t send her back in damp clothes, after all. Peggy would have his head, never mind the Guard.

‘Mm, Clint? Is it morning already?’

He turns and finds her rubbing her face with one hand, already sat upright and holding the blankets to her bust with the other. She looks well-worn, exhausted still, but rested, for the most part. He hadn’t woken again, since he took her hand, and he feels the press of it against his heart now.

‘It is,’ he nods, and pulls her nightgown off the horse. ‘Come on, get dressed.’

She continues rubbing at her face, but obligingly shoves the blankets away and gets to her feet to brace herself on his waiting arms and step into her nightgown, letting him pull it back onto her arms and button her in.

‘You’re hopeless,’ he tells her, with a kiss to her shoulder, just before he hides it under the rain-stiff muslin. ‘What would you do without servants?’

‘You love it,’ she sighs, in that still-sleepy sort of way he falls in love with there and then.

He drapes her cloak over her shoulders and helps steady her as she steps into her shoes, and then he’s pulling her out the door.

‘Your boys are going to be mad enough,’ he says, ‘let’s not make them any later.’

Walking back through the forest, hand-in-hand and warmed by the sun, is exactly the walk Laura wanted it to be last night, and she mentions it idly, as he helps her over a fallen log.

‘You like walking?’ he asks, and she nods, shuffles her cloak around her.

Though the sun is out now, there’s still a chill in the air, and she shivers with the chill of her clothes. He wishes he could give her his clothes, but the thought of her bearing his scent –

No, he stands by what he’d decided initially; best not to risk it if she’s having nightmares.

‘I love walking,’ she says, and reaches for his hand again. ‘I try and walk my dog as much as I can. He won’t come into the woods, but we take walks around the gardens, and I used to walk in the woods when I was younger.’

He laces their fingers, and swings their hands a little, gentle, as if buoyed by the breeze, and she squeezes gently.

‘That sounds nice,’ he says, ‘just walking in the woods.’

‘It does,’ she agrees, and they walk until Clint pauses.

‘Your Sergeant is there,’ he says, and points, ‘just beyond those trees.’

She nods. ‘So this is goodbye?’

‘I suppose so, yes.’

He lurches forward, as if he’s going to kiss her, but rocks back onto his heels at the last second, and leaves her leaning up and staring stupidly at the space between them.

‘Come on, it’s not far.’

Sergeant Barnes is waiting for her with Miss Romanov.

‘Steve is pissed,’ he says by way of greeting.

‘Steve can be upset all he likes,’ Laura sniffs, and very carefully lets go of Clint’s hand, turning back to look at him. ‘I forgot your favour,’ she apologises.

Clint smiles, and tucks her hair behind her ear. ‘Don’t fret about it. You’ll see me again.’

‘I do hope so,’ she says, and touches his hand with her fingertips before turning back to the Sergeant and her Lady-in-Waiting, and telling them that they’d better hurry home.

Clint watches Barnes help her up onto his horse, and he even offers Clint a salute as he turns the horse around. Laura watches him over the Sergeant’s shoulder until they’re gone from his eye line, Miss Romanov trotting after them on her pure black steed. He stays stood there for a few more minutes, listening to the sound of their hooves against the path, and then he turns and jogs back to the cottage. Laura’s hand burns against his heart like a brand, but the rest of him is freezing, cold as ice.

He hears laughter from between the trees, and picks up the pace.

* * *

Laura wakes to lights blaring through her balcony doors, and yelling echoing from the garden. Natasha’s door opens and the Lady-in-Waiting climbs onto Laura’s bed, positions herself ready to spring, carving knife in hand.

‘Nat?’ Laura breathes, touches her ankle.

Natasha flinches, and glances back.

‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ she says, ‘go back to sleep.’

Laura stares at her as the castle-wide alarm begins to ring. ‘Sleep,’ she echoes, flat.

‘Yeah,’ Natasha replies, but it sounds more like ‘da’. She does that sometimes; forget that she’s got to speak Yorkish.

It’s not that Laura doesn’t speak other languages, because she speaks Latin and Florentine fluently, but Frankish was never on her list of concerns, and she’s never met anybody else from Natasha’s corner of the world. She hears that Tsaritsyn is a cold and unforgiving place, and she doesn’t understand why people don’t move to York, or even towards the Frankish lands, because while it can be generously described as rainy, this corner of the world is warmer and gentler than the tundra.

So for Natasha, in York where very few people from Tsaritsyn live, and where the majority of Yorkish people have never set foot outside their town, never mind the kingdom, Yorkish is the best for her to speak.

‘Has someone broken in?’ Laura asks, and sits up to pull Lucky onto her lap, rubbing his neck and sides with both hands.

‘I don’t know,’ Natasha replies.

‘You’re a terrible liar,’ Laura tells her.

Natasha shrugs, and keeps her gaze on the main doors, but her back isn’t to the balcony either.

‘I’m not trying to lie,’ she says, ‘I’m trying to concentrate. Go back to sleep.’

Laura huffs, and turns her attention to Lucky, who seems too unconcerned by the alarm bells. Laura wishes that she could lay down and go back to sleep and not have to worry about the alarms, but they rattle  in her ears and against her bones, and make her ache.

‘Can’t we tell them to be quiet?’ she asks, and Natasha snorts, shifts her weight.

‘No,’ she says, and they watch the firefly flickering of candles down in the gardens as the castle guard begin to search for an intruder. ‘We need as much noise as possible.’

‘But if the intruder is sneaking,’ Laura persists, because to her this is obvious enough, ‘you won’t be able to hear him over the clatter.’

Natasha hums, disinterested at best.

‘Perhaps. But for now, you be quiet, and let them be noisy.’

Laura fusses with Lucky, rubbing at his head and neck and shoulders, plucking stray fluff from his fur, and watches the world pass her by through her balcony doors.

‘Do you think they’re here to kill me?’ she asks, sounding jovial enough but not joking by any measure.

After the nightmare, it had been considered fact that there was someone looking to kill the Princess. Why else would a monster have crept into her bedchamber in the middle of the night to scare her? It wasn’t a prank, because playing a joke on Laura generally consists of changing her cutlery first thing in the morning, or hiding her hairbrush. It doesn’t generally involve sending monsters to stare at her.

‘If they are, I’ll kill them first,’ Natasha promises. ‘But they won’t get that far. The castle guard will find them first.’

Laura almost wants her attempted assassin to evade the guard and get this far, almost wants Natasha to have to make good on her word. It would be a change of pace. Natasha is forever saying the things that she would do, but she has yet to do any of them. Laura has no reason to disbelieve that she isn’t capable, because she managed to put the boys on their backsides with a quick flip and drag of her legs, hooked around their arm and shoulders. It says good things about the castle security that the most Natasha’s ever had to do is give an open-handed slap to one of the newer butlers, because he’d been watching Laura in the bath, and that had been as far from allowed as he could have gotten.

But Laura has never seen Natasha in action, and some days, she wonders if that is a good thing.

‘It won’t be an assassin,’ Natasha says, when the silence has stretched, because Natasha knows these things, and she says them with such certainty that Laura’s got no reason to disbelieve her at all.

‘If you’re sure,’ Laura replies, and Natasha nods.

An hour passes of alarm bells ringing and guards yelling, and Laura manages to ignore the racket well enough to read to herself, because it’s better than sitting around doing nothing but go slowly mad listening to the same clanging bell and same yelling voices for God only knows how long.

She doesn’t think she could bear much more of it with nothing to distract her. How Natasha manages to sit there patiently waiting without going mad, she’ll never know.

So she asks.

She asks, ‘how do you not go mad, just sitting there like that, while all this yelling and clanging is going on?’

‘I went mad a long time ago,’ Natasha replies, and Laura sighs, so Natasha adds, ‘I’ve stopped listening. I’m paying attention to the doors, not the gardens.’

Laura accepts that as a fair answer, and turns back to her book.

After another minute, she says, ‘things have changed a lot, haven’t they? I miss how things used to be. Since I met Mister Barton, it’s all changed.’

‘That’s because you met Mister Barton,’ Natasha replies. ‘Love does that.’

‘I don’t love him,’ Laura says, but she’s a terrible liar.

Natasha hums, and they fall back into silence.

‘I miss sleeping more,’ Laura says, raising her voice in the direction of the balcony, not that the guards would be able to hear her, nor would they particularly care.

‘They won’t pay you any mind,’ Natasha says, ‘go back to your book, Laura. I need to listen for the door.’

Laura tries to go back to her book, but she’s thinking about Clint, and love, and the connection between the two, and it’s very hard to concentrate on some story of star-crossed lovers when you’re thinking about your own star-crossed lover. But she perseveres because she has nothing else to do.

Another half-hour passes, and then there’s a knock at the door, soft and gentle, the way Heather knocks last thing at night before she retires to bed. The two women look at one another, and then Laura calls out a permission to enter. Natasha puts one foot under her, ready to spring off the bed, and Laura creeps backwards, ready to fall off the far side and roll under the bed the way they’d practiced.

The door opens a crack, and then a crack more, and Laura shifts, peers around Natasha to see who’s coming in, and when there is nobody at the door, she looks at the back of Natasha’s head, her hair a sleepy mess.

‘Hello!’

Laura’s eyes jerk back to the door again, and lower towards the floor.

Oh.

There _is_ somebody there, it’s just a small someone. A girl, four or five, with dark plaits and dark eyes and a nose too big for her face. She’s adorable, in a crooked sort of way, and Laura thinks there’s something familiar about her face, but she can’t quite place it.

‘My name’s Aliénor,’ the girl says, ‘you’re Princess Laura.’

‘Oh,’ Laura says, and grips the back of Natasha’s nightgown.

‘Yes,’ Natasha says, when Laura doesn’t say anything else. ‘Yes, she’s Princess Laura. Can you say your name again?’

‘Aliénor Dernier!’ the girl crows, and lets the door swing shut behind her as she jogs over to them, all chubby knees and wide, dark eyes.

‘Dernier?’ Laura crows, too loud in Natasha’s ear, prompting the Lady-in-Waiting to elbow her.

‘Uh-huh,’ Aliénor says, and holds her arms up. ‘Up!’

Natasha hesitates, and then puts down the knife in her hand to lift the girl onto the bed. She immediately crawls over to Laura and flops across the Princess’ legs, all smiles and laughs and missing front teeth.

‘Hello,’ Laura laughs, and grips the girl under the arms, lifts her upright and puts her down in her lap proper. ‘I think I know your father. A man called Dernier works for me.’

‘Papa works for you,’ Aliénor says, ‘he’s a Guard.’

‘He is a Guard,’ Laura nods. ‘He’s a very good one.’

Natasha moves to the door, and Laura makes herself comfortable with the little one in her lap.

‘He said keep you safe,’ Aliénor explains, ‘because he’s doing work. He’s with Mama.’

Jacques has been gone for a day or two, and Laura hadn’t thought anything of it. Jacques went elsewhere every now and then, and Laura had never asked after his personal life, because he’d never mentioned it, and she didn’t want to pry into something he wasn’t willing to share. She never would have suspected him to have a family though; Aliénor must have been born shortly before he joined the Queen’s Guard, and then he’d been a whole kingdom away from his newborn. Laura hasn’t thought about having children of her own, but she’s not sure she could do it.

(Could Clint have children as a cursed man? It’s a thought that only half crosses her mind, but she finds it crossing it all the same, and she wonders what to make of the fact she was thinking it in the first place.)

‘Sweetheart,’ Laura says, while Natasha prowls around the room, looking grumpier and grumpier. ‘What’s happening in the castle? Why are you here?’

‘Papa asked Mama to come,’ the girl explains. ‘He wants her to take nice things.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’

Aliénor, however, does not seem inclined to explain, and instead catapults herself off of Laura’s lap towards the bookcase.

‘Book!’ she says, and jabs her fingers at the rows of books stacked neatly on the side. ‘Look, books! Read to me! Please!’

Another knock at the door as Laura gets up to go to the bookcase with Aliénor and help her pick out a book. Natasha goes to the door, and speaks quietly to the visitor.

‘There’s been an intruder,’ she says, when she shuts the door.

‘Papa,’ Aliénor says as she paws through a book with no pictures, and dismisses it. ‘And Mama, and Annette and Rosalie and Jacinthe.’

‘Who are they?’ Laura asks.

‘My sisters,’ Aliénor says, and drops the book she’s holding to get a different one. After a brief moment pawing through it, she thrusts it up at Laura. ‘This one!’

Laura looks at the book as she takes it back to her bed, lifting Aliénor up with her; a history of the Faulkner dynasty, dating back three hundred years before Laura’s birth, ending abruptly one year without any preamble. Laura paraphrases from the book, because she knows the history of the Faulkner dynasty well.

‘There was a Princess,’ she says, once they are settled again, Aliénor sat neatly between her legs and the book spread out across both of their knees, ‘her name was Laura too, and she was very, very pretty. She was the prettiest girl in all the kingdoms, and everybody loved her very much. She was a kind Princess, just and fair, and she would do all she could to help the people of her kingdom. That’s this Kingdom, Aliénor. She used to be the Princess of York before me, three hundred years ago. The book says she was very headstrong, and didn’t like the idea of getting married, because she would lose her kingdom, and she wanted to marry a man she loved, not some prince she didn’t know.’

Aliénor pulls a face, and Laura laughs, prods at her cheeks. The girl giggles, and paws at the pictures in the book, a woodcut print of a painting of the Faulkner Princess. It’s the same portrait that hangs in the great hall of the castle, a painting of a beautiful woman with her blonde curls piled high on her head, pearls hanging heavy around her neck, in the deepest green. There’s something eerie about her expression, something cold and playful all at once, as though she is seeing through your clothes and your skin and your bones into your soul, as though she is seeing it and enjoying the mischief she sees there. When Laura was young, she used to sit under that painting and stare at it for hours, tracing the light on every pearl, every individually painted strand of hair, shining the same gold her mother said her heart glowed. She’d fallen a little bit in love with the story of the Faulkner Princess in those early years.

‘What happened?’ Aliénor asks, ‘she die?’

‘She did die,’ Laura nods, and moves the girl’s chubby fingers to turn the page. ‘She fought against marriage for a long time, and she was almost twenty-seven when she finally gave in. There are lots of stories by all sorts of people in the castle back then, who said while she didn’t want to get married, she thought she might grow to love the prince her father had finally decided she must marry. She wasn’t ready to marry him, though, and she asked him to wait. He agreed, because he was desperately in love with her, and they have his letters, in a box in his kingdom, that say all the things he said about Princess Laura.’

‘You’re Princess Laura.’

‘I’m a different Princess Laura.’

‘Oh.’

Natasha snorts from across the room; she’s taken a seat at Laura’s dressing table, where she has a vantage of all three entry points to the room, and can see the Princess and her newest friend too. Her amusement goes ignored, and she continues picking at her nails with the knife.

Laura frowns a little at the page.

‘The king of the Prince’s kingdom didn’t like that very much. They say he had the princess kidnapped and guarded by a dragon, like in a fairy tale. He said that if King Faulkner could rescue his daughter, she wouldn’t have to marry his son, but if she couldn’t, she’d have to. They say the prince was willing wait forever for her, but the king was impatient, and wanted to lay claim to York. King John sent – he sent – he sent his best knights after her, and they all – they all failed.’

‘That’s sad.’

‘It’s hard to fight a dragon,’ Laura says, and her hands are shaking. ‘The king went to war after Laura died, and he had his kingdom fight all of the dragons in the land, killing every last one. He didn’t want any dragon to hurt anybody else’s daughter ever again.’

‘Papa would do that,’ Aliénor says, firm.

‘I’m sure he would,’ Laura agrees. ‘I read a fairy tale like this once, you know. I always thought they weren’t the same, but – I think the fairy tale is based on this.’

The Faulkner’s history doesn’t mention who the Princess had loved so dearly as to fight against marriage for a decade. For all the records say, she hadn’t loved anyone at all, and had merely protested marriage out of whimsy. But why would the official history of the Faulkner family make a record of some inconsequential stablehand, especially one who’s heart had cost them their only daughter and heir?

The stablehand had cost them the kingdom, and recording his name would only prolong his notoriety. Laura is sure that if she looked back on the records of the staff for the Faulkners, at the time of Laura’s death, there would be a space where the name of a stablehand should be.

And she’d be willing to bet her life that she knows the name they’d scratched out.

‘Clint Barton,’ she says, and Aliénor hums.

‘Who’s Clint Barton?’ she asks.

Laura laughs, a breathy little gasp of a laugh, and Aliénor beams, fidgets on her lap.

‘You love him!’ she crows, and Laura laughs some more, drawing a breath like she’s about to cry.

‘Yes,’ she says, ‘yes, I think so. He’s – he’s very dear to me. He works in the woods, helping – helping people get what they need. Like fresh meat, or finding their way.’

‘Like Mama does?’

‘I don’t know, sweetheart, I don’t know your mama.’

‘She helps people at home,’ Aliénor explains, puffing up with pride. ‘She makes cakes and breaks doors. She takes nice things out of rich people’s homes. Then she gives it to people they _really_ belong to. Because they don’t got the nice things no more and they should.’

‘I think that’s classed as theft,’ Laura says, but Aliénor is having none of it.

‘She helps people a lot. If you love your Clint Barton, you love her too. She loves you.’

‘She’s never met me.’

‘Papa talks about you. He says you got a heart of gold.’

Aliénor’s Yorkish is far better than her father’s, and Laura stares at her in wonderment. Perhaps Peggy is playing with her thoughts; perhaps Aliénor is babbling in Frankish, and she’s merely hearing it in Yorkish, because she barely understands greetings in Frankish, never mind complex sentences.

‘Oh,’ she says, because she does have a heart of gold, and it’s hard to argue with a statement of fact.

Aliénor frowns.

‘What is Clint Barton?’ she asks.

‘He’s a – he has a curse,’ Laura explains, and wonders, briefly, if she understood curses at four. ‘He turns into a – I don’t know what he turns into, but I think he turns into a dragon when he’s around a princess. Because his True Love died, you see, and her father was very upset. So he had Mister Barton cursed.’

Aliénor looks at the book spread out across their laps.

‘Princess Laura?’ she asks.

‘I believe so.’

‘Is he pretty?’ Aliénor asks, and drags her fingers across another picture, a woodcutting of a hunting scene, from one of the paintings that hangs in the corridor outside the music room. ‘The dragon man.’

‘He’s not pretty,’ Laura says, and sighs, stares of into the middle distance. ‘He’s got a big nose and crooked ears and his hair is a mess, and he dresses like he’s still living three hundred years ago, in leather and grass-stained breeches and scuffed boots. He couldn’t walk in Lower Town looking like that, never mind the castle.’

Aliénor rubs at her own nose and tugs her ears and smoothes her hair, and it’s adorable.

‘Is he nice?’

‘He’s very nice,’ Laura assures her, ‘he helped me when I was hurt, and he looks after me when I’m sad. I spent the night at his cottage not two nights ago, and he held my hand when I had a nightmare.’

‘He did, did he?’ Natasha hums, and Laura gives her a look.

‘Hands,’ Aliénor murmurs, and stares at her palms.

‘Like this,’ Laura says, and holds Aliénor’s hand to her chest the way Clint had held her hand to his heart. ‘He held it like this all night, and in the morning, because it was raining a lot and my clothes were wet, he helped me get dressed again.’

‘Papa helps me get dressed,’ Aliénor says, and her fingers drum to the beat of Laura’s heart, fluttering like a bird.

There are no further questions for a few minutes, and Laura thinks she’s got her fill of hearing about the princess’s love, so she turns her attention back to the book in their laps, re-reading it idly while Aliénor seems content enough to settle against her and nap. Laura envies her, a little, envies that the girl is able to sleep through the alarms still going. In the garden she can hear guards yelling, ‘get her!’ at each other as though they don’t already know what they’ve got to do.

Laura glances up at a noise from across the room, and finds that Natasha is staring at her like she’s seeing her for the first time. Laura stares back, dumbfounded.

‘What?’ she asks.

‘Nothing. Nothing, just – Clint Barton, eh?’

Laura sniffs, and doesn’t dignify it with a response, which is, in itself, all the response she needs to give.

Not long after, the door opens a third time, and Jacques enters, a woman the same height as him close to his side. She must be his wife; she has the same dark hair as Aliénor, pinned back into a neat, contemporary bun, and is dressed in the same mannish style Natasha adopts when she’s running errands for Commander Fury. Mrs Dernier is a pretty woman with tired eyes and laughter lines, and Laura is a little bit jealous. There are four girls to the Derniers, from what Aliénor has said, and Laura is a little jealous of their mother still walking and talking and invading her castle.

‘What on earth, Jacques?’ she asks, and Jacques just smiles.

‘Mama!’ Aliénor cries, and kicks Laura in the knee as she leaps off the bed and rushes to her parents, ‘Papa!’

Jacques doubles over to scoop his daughter up and hold her tight against his hip, talking to her in quick, gentle Frankish, returned equally fast by his daughter. Laura’s stomach twists; children suit Jacques in a way she had never considered before, and feels foolish for the jealousy still curdling in her gut.

‘Princess,’ Mrs Dernier says, ‘I apologise for my husband; it was all his idea. He spoke to me about a nightmare you had, not long ago, and he wondered if there were holes in the castle’s defences.’

‘Yes,’ Natasha says, with a grin stretching across her mouth. ‘I’d say there were.’

‘So would I,’ Mrs Dernier replies, in such complete seriousness that she’s seconds from laughing. ‘Because I managed to invade with a sixteen-year-old, ten-year-old twins, and a four-year-old who can’t step quietly for the world.’

‘Stomp, stomp, stomp,’ Aliénor rumbles, like she’s making the room rattle by saying it. Her body sways a little with every word, her little feet kicking out like she’s stamping them against the floor.

‘Stomp, stomp, stomp,’ Mrs Dernier replies, and reaches over to ruffle her daughter’s hair before turning back to Laura. ‘Jacques insisted we came to you first, before reporting to Commander Fury and to Captain Rogers. He thought you might like to know what was happening.’

‘I’m glad to know,’ Laura says with a baffled laugh. ‘I thought someone was coming to kill me.’

‘Good heavens no,’ Mrs Dernier says, ‘we’ll have the defences improved by morning, trust me. I do this for a living, you understand.’

‘Breach castle defences?’ Natasha asks.

‘Breach defences,’ Mrs Dernier says. ‘There is some – trouble – at home right now. We do not like our royalty much, nor our nobility. Or any rich asshole, for that matter. I’ve seen guillotines being built. There’s a revolution coming. I’ve merely been, ah, helping spread the wealth a little. The poor are very poor, in Frankia, you see. The rich are very rich. It’s very uneven, and I don’t approve of it at all.’

‘No,’ Laura says, ‘no, that’s not right at all.’

Slowly, the alarm bells fade into silence outside, and Laura breathes a sigh of relief.

‘Thank heavens,’ she says, ‘they were giving me such a headache! You’d best report to Commander Fury, and to Steve, too. They’ll have you in the guillotines yourselves, if you don’t.’

Mrs Dernier laughs, and ushers her husband and daughter out of the room. ‘We’ll come back,’ she promises, ‘after I’ve explained the weak points and stoked their egos some. Men are so fragile. It was a pleasure meeting you, Your Highness.’

‘And you as well,’ Laura says.

Mrs Dernier gives a bow to her, a nod to Natasha, and shuts the door.

‘What the fuck?’ Natasha says, after a few minutes have passed.

Laura doesn’t answer her, instead staring at the still-open book in her lap, fixated on the woodcutting of the Princess Laura Faulkner and feeling watched in turn.

‘Oh,’ she says, and closes the book.

* * *

Generally speaking, Laura does not take breakfast with her father and brother – she tries to avoid eating meals with them wherever possible, and now, with this business with the twins, she tries to avoid all contact with them entirely – but instead with the boys and Natasha.

The twins have joined them now, quiet and pale, but eager to eat and eager to listen to the conversation, and make soft noises of pleasure when they understand what’s being said between the Queen’s Guard and the Princess. Natasha translates as best she can, but they’re still searching for someone who speaks both Yorkish and Sokovian fluently.

Laura’s in a daze, reeling from the lack of sleep, different to the little sleep she gets because of the nightmares, and reeling from the forming revelations in the wake of her story-time with Aliénor.

For the past ten minutes, she’s been picking at the same piece of bread, and eventually, Bucky asks, ‘are you quite fine, Princess?’

‘That’s who he was dear to,’ she says, thinking out loud, even though she’s thinking about thirty different thoughts at once.

‘What’s that?’ Steve asks.

‘Mister Barton,’ Laura says, ‘he has a – when I went to see him because of the nightmares, when Bucky took me – he said he was once dear to someone, and that was why he could see the cottage in the woods. Because he was dear to someone.’

‘He has a cottage in the woods?’ Steve asks, back audibly prickling.

‘Oh, shut up,’ Bucky says, prodding him in the arm with his fork. ‘I haven’t even finished my breakfast yet.’

‘Lots of people have cottages in the woods,’ Gabe adds.

Laura frowns at her bread.

‘I think – no, no I know – it was Laura Faulkner.’

‘The dragon killer’s daughter?’ Jim asks, ‘the Princess whose death started the war on dragons? _That_ Laura Faulkner?’

‘That Laura Faulkner,’ Laura nods. ‘The Princess of York three hundred years ago. Barton is cursed. He’s the reason she died. He’s the one she loved. It makes – it makes so much sense.’

‘It makes no sense,’ Gabe says, because Steve looks like he’s about to scream, but Gabe looks like he thinks it makes sense, like he’s understanding what Laura isn’t saying.

‘So what you’re saying,’ Dugan says, waving his fork, ‘is that this Barton kid you met in the woods way back when, is three hundred years old and cursed, and that he was the man that Princess Laura loved enough to turn down suitors for years, in hopes of marrying him?’

‘Yes,’ Laura says.

‘And he’s the reason she got kidnapped by that king.’

‘That’s right.’

‘You’re saying that Barton is the reason there are no dragons and that the Harcourt line took over the York throne.’

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

‘And that because he was her True Love or whatever you want to call it, he can see a cottage in the woods that only people who were dear to the Faulkner girl could see?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re going out of the castle, half of the time without permission from anyone, to see this man?’ Dugan asks finally, eyebrows raised, and fork waggling.

‘I know it sounds ridiculous,’ Laura starts, and Steve slams a hand on the table, making everything jump and the table groan.

He has the decency to flush, but not to look embarrassed.

‘Ridiculous is not the word for it, Laura!’ he snaps, ‘you’re deliberately endangering yourself and everyone around you by associating with him!’

‘Oh, leave it alone, Steve,’ Natasha says, ‘she’s an adult, she can make her own decisions.’

Steve and Natasha start bickering, and Laura stops listening to them, too busy thinking about Clint’s curse, and what that means. The twins are staring at her, and she imagines she can feel Wanda poking in her head, her spidery fingers prodding at her thoughts and guiding them into a linear path that she can follow, but that’s silly. Wanda is staring at her, sure, but she’s clearly listening to the bickering with a smile on her face. Pietro is just staring at her in awe, the way he always stares at her whenever he sees her.

She was right to look three hundred years back in the records; she’d been thinking of the Faulkner story when she’d looked, without thinking about it in so many words. And it explained why she couldn’t find him – he’d have been stricken from the records when Princess Laura passed, because King John would have wiped every trace of him from history for what he’d done.

No wonder he lived in the woods and never really interacted with people.

Jealously burns bile-hot in her throat, and she puts her breakfast down, lays her cutlery across her place, and reclines. She’s done, and Natasha walks her back to her bedchamber to get ready for the day. With the revelation of how easy it was for the Dernier girls to break into the castle and cause a ruckus – the eldest daughter Annette, a fiery girl with no grace and all temper, had caused a ruckus primarily on account of her being very pretty and very unidentified, but she’d found the boys and stuck with them throughout their search for the intruder, left under Gabe’s care after Steve tied her wrists with a length of string he found in a pocket, and the twins, Jacinthe and Rosalie, had caused a ruckus all of their own, running riot around the castle and swapping places and ribbons with every pass, confusing the staff at every turn – there had been a number of meetings called by Commander Fury to discuss how to proceed. It had kept everyone up all night long, and today was to be spent implementing all of the designs for the castle that Mrs Dernier had created with Commander Fury and Steve during the meeting they’d had for the remainder of the night.

‘Natasha?’ Laura asks, and Natasha buttons her into her dress for the day, deep olive green with gold trim.

‘Hm?’

‘I need you to do a favour for me.’

‘You always need me to do a favour for you.’

‘Go into the woods today, and find Barton for me. He’ll know you’re there, just call for him, and tell him I sent you, he should come. Tell him I want to meet with him two nights from now. I’ll speak to Jacques, he’ll know how to sneak me out.’

‘We’re not telling Steve?’

‘It’s his night off. He has one night off a week, and Bucky, too.’

‘You have some truly terrible ideas,’ Natasha sighs, and finishes with the buttons. ‘You have some good ones too, but this is terrible.’

‘Oh, hush up,’ Laura says, and checks herself in the mirror before following Natasha down to the war room.

* * *

Clint is waiting for her when she arrives, and leads her and Duke a short distance away to what looks like a midnight picnic. The horse seems calmer now than he has the last few times that he’s encountered Clint. Perhaps Laura’s peace of mind is keeping the horse calm too.

‘This is sweet,’ she says, dismounting from her side-saddle with his hands on her hips to help her, and she smiles, giddy and unwilling to move away.

So she doesn’t, even though she knows doing so endangers his control of himself. His eyes glow, flash white, and then return to storm blue. Her hips ache, the sharp throb of oncoming bruises on her very bones, but there’s something nice about it, something well-loved about knowing she was bearing bruises that came from his determination to maintain control of himself.

That was nice, after a fashion.

He holds her hand like he’s leading her to a ball, and she mentions it, laughing when he twirls her, and the moths in her belly flutter at the flame of his soft smile.

‘You should come to a ball,’ she tells him.

‘With all those royal girls? I’m old, not daft.’

She smiles, and squeezes his hand to steady herself as she sits, skirts falling in neat, perfect folds around her.

Clint’s breath audibly catches when she looks up, and there’s something so frighteningly warming about the heated, naked hunger in his gaze.

‘Come sit,’ she says, tugging on his hand. ‘Don’t stand there like a statue.’

He comes out of whatever thoughts occupied him, and she makes room for him on the blanket next to her, and he sits close enough that she can feel his warmth. For all the muscle in his shoulders, he’s all limb like this, legs far from tucked neatly away like hers are, and he occupies such a large space beside her that she feels – feels –

She feels protected. Nothing, she thinks, can hurt her here, because Clint is at her side, a very definite barrier between her and all the nightmarish creatures that seek to cause her harm.

‘It isn’t much,’ he apologises. ‘I’m sure your royal picnics are much more - um. More.’

‘They are,’ Laura says, because royal picnics are extravagances beyond reasonable measure, ‘but this is really, really nice, Clint.’

There’s something in his expression that makes Laura want to say his name a dozen more times, just to watch him unravel at the seams. But instead of tormenting him and testing exactly how good his control is, she turns the conversation to their meal.

For having limited resources, Clint is creative and has made a lot of little. There’s plenty of food, and plenty of variety, but the base ingredients are the same.

‘This is incredible,’ she says some minutes later around a mouthful of venison, spit-roasted with herbs she’s never heard of, let alone tried.

‘It’s hard to get hold of these days,’ Clint explains, when she asks about the sharp taste. ‘You can only find it in a few patches of the wood. I tried growing it, but my cottage is in completely the wrong soil.’

Laura laughs and, when asked why she’s laughing, admits she can’t imagine him trying to farm anything. Clint snorts, pokes her in the ribs, and turns back to his food.

They chat quietly while they eat, talking about everything and nothing, and Laura finishes eating, some minutes before Clint, as his appetite is much bigger than her own. This is, she’s found, a typical thing of men, as the Queen’s Guard pack food away like they’re never going to eat again, but Steve says that Peggy’s Blessing has caused him to burn through food as though he’d barely eaten, and Laura imagines curses work in much the same way. The twins must be the same, too, though with how thin their wrists are, and how hollow their faces, it’s hard to judge what is their curse starving them, and what is their belly.

Still, it’s nice to know that the food’s not only not going to waste, but that Clint’s eating well too.

The conversation has been nice, and she’s learnt a lot about him, what about him he’s able to say. He cannot say certain words – he can’t talk about his curse, and what caused it makes his eyes and throat tighten, pinched with the same grief she feels in her chest when she talks about her mother, and he tries to avoid saying the word “Princess” as much as possible, because it makes his eyes flash and his mouth burn, but he’s willing to talk about everything else. He tells her about life in the woods, about the way of things in Lower Town. He even talks about Reverend Murdock, and Mister Wilson, and the people he’s grown to know through his hunting. He talks a little about Peggy, too, when Laura mentions her, and talks about all the things Peggy’s done over the years to help him.

She talks to him in turn, tells him about her life. She talks briefly of her mother, of the simple picnics they used to take when she was a child, and tells him of all the things Peggy’s done for her. She talks, when he asks, of the nightmares, tells him in more detail, what detail she can manage, of what she sees in her sleep, and he gets an angry sort of twist to his mouth that makes her fall silent. He cannot tell her about it, though he desperately tries, slamming his fists on the blanket when his mouth glues itself shut against the truth. The brief display of anger is so sweet, in the way a child tantrums against bedtime, that Laura laughs loud, and his smile is immediate.

Laura watches him shove the last mouthful of the stew in his mouth from the corner of her eye, having been watching the woods absently in the comfortable lull of conversation, and shuffles onto her knees to reach into the reticule she’d pulled off her wrist when she sat. She continues watching Clint starting to tidy up from the picnic from the corner of her eye as she ferrets around in the reticule, finally closing her fingertips around a strip of silk.

‘Clint?’

He hums, and turns his head enough to look at her. His gaze snaps to her half-hidden hand, and then back to her face, a worried crease forming between his eyebrows. It’s an expression Laura is already familiar with; it’s the expression he had when she returned to the dungeon, keys in hand. She smiles, gentle and honest.

‘Do you trust me?’

He hesitates for half a second.

‘Not really, but I’ll hear you out.’

Laura shuffles closer, still on her knees, until she’s nearly touching his.

‘Close your eyes and hold out your right hand. You’re left-handed, right?’

‘Yes. But what are you-’

‘Just trust me, honey. I promise, it won’t hurt you at all.’

Clint frowns, but shifts to face her, sitting with his legs crossed, holds his hand out for her to take. She does so, and squeezes soft.

‘Close your eyes, honey. I won’t do it until you’ve closed your eyes.’

He takes a breath, and shuts his eyes. Laura is so tempted to kiss him like this, because with the frown, his lips are slightly pursed, just enough to make him look like he’s waiting for her to kiss him. She even leans in a little, close enough to count the freckles on his nose, but she rocks back onto her knees, pulls the silk from her reticule. After a moment spent watching him, she loops the silk around his wrist a handful of times before knotting it off.

‘Laura?’ he whispers. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Giving you my favour, like I promised,’ she whispers back, and does lean in to kiss him that time, barely a brush of their mouths, and he jumps a mile.

But his eyes don’t open.

Still close enough to brush mouths when she talks, she whispers, ‘open your eyes, Clint. You can look now.’

She rocks back onto her heels in time for him to open his eyes, halfway and a little glazed with the kiss (she hopes) and look at his wrist, where she’s wrapped a length of purple silk, tied off in a neat little knot. He stares at it, and then stares at her. There’s something sad in his expression, and Laura feels her own expression saddening, because when she gave him her favour, this is not the reaction she expected.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asks. ‘You look - sad.’

Clint frowns. ‘Nothing, it’s just - it’s nothing. I promise. It’s - I’ll never take it off.’

‘Have you taken this off?’ she asks, and touches the necklace around his neck, just about visible through the open neck of his jerkin.

‘Not since I put it on,’ he says. ‘And I won’t take the favour off either.’

She thinks he probably should - it’ll ruin the silk, if he washes it in the pools. Maybe she can convince him to go to the bathhouse.

‘You kissed me,’ he says, to change the subject. ‘Look at you, kissing a criminal. What a Queen you’ll become.’

‘You’d be happy to serve under me though, wouldn’t you?’ she asks, and lifts into him, because she thinks he might like to be under her in other ways than his status as subject.

‘Maybe,’ he says, and his fingers creep up her thigh to her hip.

‘Maybe? What a noble knight you are! And after I gave you my favour too! You, sir, are a scoundrel. I bet you let all the ladies kiss you, and then run to the next one!’

Clint snorts, and grips her hips, pushes her back onto her heels. ‘You, ma’am, are just as much of a scoundrel! How many noble knights have you given your favour to, hm? How many let you kiss them and tie their favours before running to the next, claiming the Prin – the Prince – claiming your favour?’

Laura laughs, and laughs more when further back and forth has him pouncing on her to tickle her mercilessly. She squeals, pinned under his weight, and scrabbles at his hands.

‘Mercy!’ she squeaks. ‘Oh Gods above, mercy! I can’t breathe! I can’t - ah, haha - oh Clint, please!’

‘Laura,’ Clint whispers, serious enough that she stops laughing immediately, and barely even breathes. They’re nose to nose, and his eyes are both very blue and very black, that same hunger in his expression as earlier, and her breathless lungs catch, heart skipping.

‘Clint,’ she whispers, reaches up to touch his face. ‘Clint, for God’s sake, kiss me.’

His eyes flare, and something vicious snarls in his chest before they settle back to the soft blackness of arousal and he does as he’s told.

And being kissed is a revelation. It’s hot, and tea-sweet and full of tongue and teeth and their noses bump, press together like jigsaw pieces. Everything feels perfect, like it should be, like it was meant to be, and Laura gasps, hikes her leg up over his hip.

Abruptly, Clint pulls away, only as far as the tips of their noses, and he watches her face.

‘Do they know you’re here?’ he asks.

Laura strokes her hand over the wrinkles in his brow. ‘Who?’

‘Anybody,’ he says, ‘anybody who needs to know. The Queen’s Guard, your maid, anybody.’

‘Natasha knows,’ she says, ‘and Jacques arranged to sneak me out of the castle. But Steve doesn’t know I’m gone, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s his night off; Jacques and Gabe are on duty now, and Monty and Dugan will take over.’

‘You’re hiding it from Rogers?’

‘No,’ she says, ‘not particularly? If he asks, I’ll tell him. But I don’t see why he needs to know that I’m here and not in bed. It’s none of his business.’

Clint frowns at her, so she grabs his nape and lifts her chin, kisses him again. He hesitates, and then kisses back, eager and willing and very much an active participant in the kissing. It’s all very nice indeed, and Laura’s happy to kiss all night long, but then he goes very still and breathes in a very forced way, and Laura watches his eyes flash blue and white and bluer still. He’s heavier against her, chest pressed flush but his hips raised and she strokes his cheeks.

‘Clint,’ she breathes, ‘Clint, are you alright?’

He shakes his head, and eventually sighs against her mouth. ‘You need to go,’ he tells her, voice tight and squeaking on the hard consonants, ‘I’m losing control.’

‘But you aren’t,’ she argues. ‘If you can tell me you’re losing control, then you’re still in control.’

‘Don’t argue with me,’ he says, and there’s a snarl in his voice, deep in his chest, in a place where Laura would have to crack his ribs open to get to it.

It almost scares her, but then his weight tips, just a little, and she can feel the press of his erection against her hip. Her lips curl upwards, instead of downwards into a frown, and Clint’s eyes flash white, burn ice-blue in the shadows of the moonlight filtering through the trees.

‘That doesn’t feel like an argument,’ she says, gleeful and teasing.

He does snarl that time, and he has fangs instead of teeth, his mouth blackened by the blood there. And that - that does scare her. That makes her freeze, go completely still, and something like contrition crosses his face.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, but it’s a growl, rumbling deep in his chest and burning through his throat. ‘I’m sorry, you should - you should go, before it gets any worse. I don’t want to hurt you.’

‘You won’t hurt me,’ she says, stroking his face, ‘I trust you.’

But it doesn’t sound quite true, because there is purple creeping up under the collar of his jerkin, spreading out along his shoulders, replacing all the sun-freckles that dot his skin. And he still has fangs and the ice-blue shine in his eyes, and there is something less human about his face, something just inhuman enough that she can’t look at him straight.

‘Laura,’ he breathes, ‘please, go where it’s safe, where I am not and where you are not tempting the – the monster.’

Laura takes a breath, and Clint’s eyelashes flutter.

‘Can you not – not be tempted?’ she asks.

His lips quirk, but he doesn’t quite smile, and instead bumps their noses, something sad flicking across his eyes.

‘No, honey,’ he murmurs, ‘no, it’s much too late for that. Please just – get home safely.’

He backs away, and Laura draws her legs up, rolls to her knees, and clambers to her feet, ungainly. Her knees are knocking, her belly tight and fingers shaking. Clint stays where he is, curled into a ball with his face in his hands, buried in the blanket, and she looks at him for a moment. She wants to touch his hair, his shoulder, tell him everything will be fine. But she’s not so sure that it is.

‘Clint,’ she says, ‘I’ll – I’ll come back. This can’t be it; I won’t let this be it.’

‘It won’t be it,’ he assures her through his fingers, mumbling into the blanket. ‘I just – I need to learn to control myself again, is all. I’ll be fine soon.’

He sounds like he’s lying, and Laura opens her mouth halfway to tell him so, but there’s a suspiciously loud echo of tearing fabric, and she can see the jut of bone at his temples, where horns are pushing through the space between his fingers.

‘Go!’ Clint barks, and lets go of his face to clutch at the blanket instead.

Laura hesitates for only a second longer before turning on her heel and rushing back to her horse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's like Buckaroo, geddit?
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, lovelies!!! As always, any questions/comments/screeching, i'm at vinnie2757 on tumblr! <3


	6. You Shall Go to the Ball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Laura's birthday and the kingdom celebrates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for body horror, depictions of violence and minor character death

Lower town is in a flurry, yelling and screaming and stinking of drunken revels. For a week or more, they’ve been in preparation, and now the festivities have begun. Clint strolls the streets, heading for the families he knows always need meat, sack of rabbits and ducks and half a deer over his shoulder, and does his best to sidestep the festivities. Children are running riot, the way children always run riot, in their best clothes and with masks on their faces. There’s always a masquerade to royal festivities, because – because –

Because of the dragons.

Clint breathes deep through his nose, and stares at the sky. It’s a clear day, so unlike the storms they’ve had recently, like God has been mad about something, and Clint has had three hundred years to be in the frame of mind that he’s to blame, for something he did or didn’t do.

His senses are in overload, and he needs to get out of the streets, but he has to deliver his hunt first. There are families counting on him to deliver them fresh meat, and he can’t slack off just because it’s the Crown Jewel’s birthday.

Paintings of her litter the streets, posters depicting her as all sorts of fairy tales nailed to every inch of wall. Sometimes they even look like her. One painting depicts her in the high hair and pearls of the Faulkner Princess, and if the art wasn’t bad, the resemblance would be startling. He pauses by one that shows her as she is, with her hair in a neat bun, a loose strand falling at her temple, in a red dress with a single strand of pearls about her neck. Her eyes are painted in sunshine yellow, and look right at him. It looks like her, enough that Clint pauses to stare at it.

‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’

He whirls, but there’s no one there, just a happy, oblivious crowd, drinking and laughing and being merry in their Lower Town finery.

He glances at the picture a last time and continues on his way.

Once all of his goods are delivered, and the ribbon on his wrist has been complimented a dozen times by the mothers he’s delivering his hunt to, he turns back to head out of Lower Town, stopping only to get the bare necessities he needs from the market stalls that are hollering about their wares from here to kingdom come. They all try to flog trinkets and masks and talismans, the way they always try to flog their shit at the royal festivities.

Clint grits his teeth against the dragon masks lined up in shade of purple and blue, and buys a length of gold chain. It eats up the last of his coin, but he doesn’t care, because he has everything else he needs. It just needs a good clean, is all, and he has plenty of salt at the cottage.

There are musicians singing ditties and hooting and hollering on the street corners, with girls dancing to the waltzes they play. One of them grabs him by the wrist and drags him in, calls him handsome and laughs when he doesn’t know how to move his feet.

‘Honestly!’ she cries, all pretty dark eyes and wide grin, ‘like this, see? How will you win the girl if you can’t even move her across the floor?’

He manages a laugh, but focuses on his feet, on where they need to go. Laura will want to dance, and he’d best know how.

Every year, there are festivities in Lower Town, but this year, they’ve excelled themselves. There’s finer weather than there’s been in weeks, and bunting covering every free inch. Everybody has a smile on their face, and everybody is in their finery, or in costume, masks on their faces and hairlines and about their necks, Harcourt house colours, red and yellow, tied proud about their arms. There are drinks in many hands, and girls in many others, and every stall has something to sell that smells or looks or sounds vibrant. Clint normally tries to avoid Lower Town during weeks of festivities, because of this very reason; sensitive as he is to everything, to sights and smells and sounds, he’s reduced to a blubbering mess by the end of the first day, and there are six more to go. But this year – Laura _exists_ , and he cannot avoid her forever.

Already, he’s watching the skyline, as if he might see Anthony Stark’s infamous fireworks lighting up the sky, even though it’ll be the middle of the night before he starts lighting them. The castle is just barely visible over the top of the trees, the tallest spires flying the banners, fluttering and shining gold and crimson in the breeze. He takes a breath, and turns his gaze away. Laura is in the castle somewhere, untouchable for the most part, being presented with a thousand gifts and a thousand graces. A small part of him hopes she’s thinking of him, though the rest of him knows that she’s going to be too distracted to think about her cursed – her cursed – he is not her love.

A small child bumps into his legs as he tries to skirt around an amorous couple, and he glances down to apologise.

They’re wearing a dragon mask in purple and black, their blue eyes wide and clear like the sky above their heads, and his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth, throat like ash.

‘Sorry,’ he croaks, and the child laughs, runs off to join their friends.

Clint follows them with his gaze, and one of the older boys, sans mask and in grubby finery, makes horns out of his fingers, held against his temples, making clear eye contact with Clint. And Clint, whose heart has been hammering like a war drum the entire morning, touches his temples with both hands, breathing deep in a panic.

‘Oh God,’ he sighs, and shakes his head. ‘I need to get out of here.’

After spending too long in a stinking alley gathering his breath and his mind and his heart, he finds himself desperately seeking some form of familiar face - anyone would do, he thinks. He'll, he'd even take that Mister Coulson fellow that Matthew had pointed out to him as someone searching for him. There's always someone searching for him these days, it feels like. Wade says that that house in Tsaritsyn has sent someone for him, but Wade has been saying that for as long as Clint's known him. It just makes Clint think Wade told the girls at Tsaritsyn that he existed, just to spice up his millennium of utter silence. It seems like something Wade would do.

Granted, he'd met the girl Wade had mentioned, that Miss Romanov of Laura's, and the thought of Laura sets something warm bubbling in his belly, like the dragon but gentler. Softer.

'Fuck,' he says to himself, standing at a market stall and staring at the fabrics, even though he can't sew, and has no money to purchase fabric regardless. 'Fuck, fuck, fuck.'

'Are you alright, sir? Do you need help?'

Clint whirls, and sees Matthew on the arm of a pretty woman, with dark skin and darker hair, neatly braided at her scalp. He's hobbling again, face black and blue.

'You must be Matthew's Miss Temple,' he says, and grins at the Priest, who looks very much like he'd like to swear. 'He's told me a lot about you, speaks very highly.'

'Likewise,' Miss Temple replies. 'Matthew would have us believe the other a god, I think, with how highly he speaks of you.'

Matthew is going red, and he fidgets. 'What were you cursing about?'

‘I have an invitation,’ Clint says, and glances at Miss Temple, who has knotted brows, but nothing malicious in her expression, and then to the bustle around them.

No one is looking or paying attention, too busy rushing around, preparing for the festivities. Banners and bunting do not put themselves up, and food does not make itself.

‘An invitation?’

‘To the birthday ball at the castle. I was invited.’

‘You got an invite to the castle?’ Miss Temple asks, disbelieving at best.

‘He’s got a – He’s involved with the Pri – heiress,’ Matthew explains to the woman, patting her arm. ‘They have an understanding.’

‘I suppose it’s an understanding that involves mouths doing as hands do?’ she asks, and Clint can feel his ears going red.

‘It’s not like that at all.’

‘I know Matthew,’ she says, ‘I know what a liar looks like, Mister Barton, and I know enough about you from what Matthew has said to know that you have that kind of understanding.’

‘You’re bothered,’ Matthew says, ‘about the invitation.’

Clint rakes his hands through his hair, and looks about them again, feels eyes on him. It’s probably Wade, but he can’t take that chance.

‘Is there somewhere we can go?’ he asks, ‘I’m feeling – I feel watched.’

‘Let’s return to my building,’ Miss Temple says, ‘it’s quiet there, and it’s not far. Besides, it’s time I looked at that face of yours again, Reverend.’

Clint trails after them as they walk, bickering in that way young couples have bickered for centuries. There is no malice to any of it, just honest affection and good nature, and Clint misses it like a limb.

He almost misses the kisses more.

Almost.

Miss Temple’s building is a small one on the edge of the main street, not far from Matthew’s church, and declares itself a pharmacy.

‘I’m not technically _allowed_ to call it that,’ Miss Temple admits, unlocking the door and shoving Matthew through it before stepping aside to let Clint in, following him and locking the door behind her. ‘The Doctors’ Guild won’t allow me a licence, but not one of them has directly challenged me yet.’

 ‘No?’ Clint asks, and looks at Matthew, who is staring deliberately at the wall.

Miss Temple hums and shakes her head. ‘No, no, they all moan and groan and make a ruckus in the assembly about it, but not one of them will say anything about it to my face. Though – I did get my shutters broken the other day, and it was quite disconcerting to wake up to, I will admit.’

‘It’s a disgrace,’ Matthew says, ‘you provide a cheap service to women and men and children alike, using knowledge and simple remedies that have been passed down through the centuries of your family, and this is what they do. They might as well just class you a witch and have done with it.’

‘Don’t say that,’ Clint chides, taking a seat against the edge of one of her many over-cluttered counters. ‘You know they’ll start lobbying for a stake if they hear you talk like that about your own love.’

Matthew has the decency to flush, but Miss Temple, busy collecting things from behind one of the counters, merely snorts.

‘He should count himself lucky. Not many girls would have his nonsense.’

‘No girl I know would stand for it,’ Clint says, and Matthew makes a rude gesture. ‘Ah-ah-ah, that deserves at least four Hail Marys and two months in penance.’

‘Oh, shove it up your nose, Barton,’ Matthew snorts.

Clint grins, and spreads his hands.

As Miss Temple works on checking over Matthew’s face and myriad of clothes-hidden injuries, Matthew asks what Clint is worried about the invitation for.

 ‘I’ll be in the castle,’ he says, ‘on Laura’s birthday, and there will be a lot of Ladies there who are – they are the word.’

‘Word?’

‘Clint can’t say or hear the P-word,’ Matthew says. ‘Related to the Royal House. Part of his curse involves that word.’

Miss Temple considers this, and then says, ‘then why go at all? If you’re going to turn into a – what do you turn into?’

‘A dragon.’

‘Dragons were wiped out centuries ago,’ she says, and Clint shrugs.

‘And yet here I am.’

‘Well, anyway, whatever you turn into, why go if it’s going to cause that to happen? Being around all those women is not going to help you at all.’

‘It’s Laura’s birthday,’ he says, ‘I have to attend, at least briefly, to give her her gift.’

After a brief pause, he says, ‘also, I have nothing suitable to wear.’

‘I’ll get Miss Page on the case,’ Matthew promises, ‘let’s head back to the church, and I’ll pass the office on the way. It’s about time they saw daylight.’

Clint has known Miss Page and Mister Nelson for some years now, introduced by Matthew not long after their first meeting, but Mister Nelson has something of a dislike of Clint’s character. Clint pretends not to notice.

Miss Temple hooks her hand into Clint’s elbow as they progress to the church, leaving Matthew to his cane and his friends’ building, and they walk in peaceful quiet through the heaving streets. She breathes as if she’s about to say something, but says nothing the entire way.

Clint doesn’t ask.

* * *

 

The week of her birthday, Laura goes to the castle’s chapel, and goes to sit in the confessional. It’s been a long time since she last sat here, and years since she really confessed to her sins. But her father is insisting she begin her year anew, and it is easier to admit to wanting to lie with Clint than it is to argue with her father. The door to the Priest’s side is shut, which means he is in there, and they sit in silence for several minutes, Laura ruminating, and the Priest, for all Laura knows, sleeping.

'Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been some months since my last confession.'

The priest on the other side of the board chuckles and says, 'the Father cares not when you confess, only that you do. Tell me your sins, child.'

Laura breathes, and breathes some more when it feels like she'll never breathe again.

'There is a man,' she says, 'who is - is - is born of the Devil's own rib. He has committed crimes against the kingdom and against the King himself. He has escaped the castle dungeon and now runs free in the woods, where I sneak out to see him. We have kissed, Father, and I dream of more. I dream of laying with him as a wife lays with her husband, and I often dream of - '

She trails off, face crimson and steaming.

'Dream of what, child? I cannot advise your penance without the true knowledge of your sin.'

'I dream of taking him for my own. Of being under him and over him and having him every way from here to Tsaritsyn and back. I dream of fucking him on the throne and yet I know I am to marry another. Someone who is not a criminal. I know I cannot marry for love, and must marry for politics, but even so, I wish I could marry him. I would be happy, I think, to call myself his wife, and that is the shame of it.'

For a while, the Father is silent, and Laura picks at her dress, lips pursed.

‘That is indeed a shame,’ the Father says, and Laura likes to think she’s flummoxed him. ‘We haven’t spoken for many months, have we? I’ve missed having you come see me.’

‘I apologise,’ she says, honestly. ‘I have been – busy, these past months. And I have not had much to confess until now.’

‘You don’t have to confess to visit. It is a joy to see you on a Sunday, of course, but it is not the same. I must confess myself hurt to hear you’d visited Lower Town’s church and Lantom and his boy Murdock.’

‘I had need of Reverend Murdock’s parish records,’ Laura says, ‘and I never would have been allowed to see them had they been brought to the castle. Captain Rogers did not want me to see them.’

The Father hums.

‘Do you wish to confess that?’

‘No,’ she says, ‘for I regret not a moment of it. I had need of the records, the same way I have need of penance for the sin of my thoughts. I cannot go into my new year with this weight on my chest.’

It is not much of a weight, because Laura does not regret the dreams. But it cannot hurt to do the penance all the same. She hasn’t had the dreams in a long while, with the nightmare invading every moment of sleep, but she wouldn’t change them for the world.

They talk a little longer, and eventually her penance is given. It seems very light, and not very penitent at all, but she agrees, and heads on her way.

It takes her barely days to complete her penance, the castle’s preparations carrying on around her as she counts out her Hail Marys and her prayers, and does her best to cast Clint Barton from her thoughts.

If it doesn’t work all that well, well the only person who can read her mind doesn’t seem interested, more interested in tailing after everyone else, poking her nose into every little corner of the castle, and occasionally just _sitting_ , holding her brother’s hand and staring at nothing.

* * *

 

Miss Page arrives at the Church an hour later with a gentleman at her side.

‘I brought Mister Potter,’ she says, and Clint looks up from the book Miss Temple is running her finger along the lines off, reading to him quietly.

Matthew is sitting at one of the pews, hands clasped in his lap and looking for all the world like he’s asleep. He’s not, because occasionally, he will correct Clint’s attempts at pronouncing words, and laugh at his increasing frustration at his inability to pronounce religious terminology.

‘Mister Potter!’ Matthew exclaims, leaping to his feet and kneeing the pew in front of him. Grunting, he eases his way out into the aisle and hobbles down to where Miss Page is waiting with Mister Potter, and extends his hands.

Mister Potter takes them and squeezes tight.

‘Father!’ he says, ‘it has been a long time. I have missed you.’

‘I’ve missed you, too, Melvin, you should come and visit some time, you’re always welcome here, and at Miss Temple’s shop.’

Mister Potter scuffs his toes, and shuffles awkwardly, in that endearing way of a flustered child being invited to a friend’s house, and Miss Temple squeezes Clint’s shoulder before getting to her feet.

‘How’s Betsy?’ Miss Temple asks, and Clint casts a last look to the book before folding it shut and getting to his feet too, slipping around the pews to join the troop in the aisle.

‘She’s well, thank you. She’s very well. The potion made her well.’

Clint glances at her, but Miss Temple just looks quietly pleased, in that way women look pleased when they have done something seemingly very complicated in a very simple way. Having spent three hundred years being mystified by women, Clint decides to not ask about the potion.

‘Mister Potter,’ Miss Page says after a moment, touching his arm gently, ‘this is Mister Barton, he’s going to the Royal Ball on – Mister Barton?’

‘Wednesday.’

‘Two days?’ Mister Potter says, and fiddles with his fingers. ‘You need clothes.’

‘That’s right. I live in the woods, this is about all I own.’

Mister Potter tuts, and shuffles a circle around Clint, tutting under his breath the entire way.

‘This is not good,’ he says, ‘not good at all.’

‘Can you fix it?’ Miss Temple asks, and shoots Clint a grin that is very much not returned.

‘I can fix everything,’ Mister Potter says, ‘at least – clothes. I can fix clothes. He needs a haircut.’

Clint runs his hands through his hair; it feels fine to him.

‘I’ll sort that out,’ Miss Temple assures him, ‘we just need to get him dressed for a ball.’

‘I will do my best,’ Mister Potter says. ‘But I need my workshop. I cannot dress him here.’

Hands touch Clint’s back without warning, and Clint leaps a mile. It’s only Mister Potter, measuring his shoulders with his hands, and he hums.

‘Big shoulders,’ he says, and grabs Clint’s hand, lifting his arm to feel his bicep. ‘Big arms. Strong man.’

‘I’m a,’ Clint starts, and then hesitates.

‘He’s a hunter, Melvin,’ Matthew says, ‘he has a bow and arrow.’

‘There is a tourney!’ Mister Potter exclaims, and grips Clint’s hand and arm tight enough to sting. ‘In the castle. Archery! The Princess likes archery! There is a poster.’

Clint grits his teeth and shudders. Miss Temple looks at him askance, and he blinks until his vision numbs a little, loses the sharp edge the curse gives it.

‘Could you show me?’ he asks, because Mister Potter seems very eager to show him. ‘When we go to your workshop?’

Matthew looks pleased, and Misses Temple and Page are very happy to let him get dragged away to be dressed.

* * *

 

Like any young woman, Laura adores receiving gifts, and even more so adores receiving lots of gifts. But there is a certain tediousness to the gift-giving that takes a lot of the joy out of it. She has to sit through hours a day for a week, sitting prettily in the throne room with her father and his blue eyes and her brother and his grumbling, and accept waves of gifts. Some of them are thoughtful, simple little things that she knows she’ll use – the soap-makers in the Queen’s Village make her new soaps from their best honey and freshly-imported vanilla, and the tailor she adores has made her a gown for her birthday ball, in the deepest purple silk and lace – but others are pointless trinkets she has no need for.

She’s touched by the families of Lower Town and Lynne’s Brook, who made her gifts with what they had, banding together to create something to honour her, and her smiles are genuine, lighting their faces with glee at the Princess’ genuine, honest gratitude. The children who present the gifts to her are sweet, products of their upbringing and reminding her, poignantly, that she needs to _fix it_. The system is broken, and she’s been continuing her mother’s work where she can, but there is so much that needs to be done.

Laura hasn’t seen Lord Hammer for several years; after an argument with Stark not long after her mother died, she’d banned him from her house and her gardens until such a time as she saw fit to invite him back. He’d not set foot, to her knowledge, inside the castle grounds until quite recently, when she’d invited him back for dinner. Stark had been squawking like a strangled goose for days afterwards, but she’d explained, politely, that he needed to shut up and let her make amends.

‘He’ll think that you want to marry him,’ Stark had warned her, waggling a wrench in her direction like a particularly grandmotherly finger.

‘No, he won’t,’ Laura had sniffed, because Laura had been seventeen, and full of her own wisdom.

But now, with Lord Hammer making a big speech about the travels he undertook to find this rare and valuable gift for the Princess on her birthday, she wonders if perhaps Stark had not been as full of nonsense as she thought.

‘For months,’ Hammer declares, waxing poetic like he has any of the charisma necessary to tell a decent story, ‘I searched for the origin of this magnificent gift, searching for its authenticity; I could not _bear_ to give you a gift that was not as genuine as the intention behind it.’

The boys, scattered around the room and watching the queue of people, all snort audibly, and Laura carefully covers her mouth to hide her grin.

Across the room, Miss Potts, who has already given her Stark’s gift – a mechanical bird that sang when she twisted the key – manages to hide her grin, but not her snort.

‘I see,’ Laura says.

Jason is bored beside her, reading, and it’s impudent, but Laura’s not of a mind to make him stop. It means he’s not paying attention to her. Her father isn’t paying much attention either, but he doesn’t seem to be paying attention to anything, staring blankly with those blue eyes of his. She’s asked Wanda to look into his mind, but the girl refuses, waving her hands and shaking her head and tearing up any time Laura asks, and she cannot get a reason from her.

‘But I managed to find its origin!’ Hammer crows, ‘and prove that it is the genuine article! And so I present to you, my Princess, the gift of a genuine dragon scale, dating back to the War on Dragons that gave you and your family their name.’

Laura bites her tongue; she could tell him a lot of things about the war, but she keeps her mouth shut.

‘A dragon scale?’ she asks, and Hammer approaches the throne at last, extends an exquisite little wooden box to her, and she takes it, careful not to let their hands touch.

The scale is as big as her palm, a deep purple and shining with the sunlight, and she breathes deeply at seeing it. Her lip’s wobbling, and she swallows, stares at it.

‘Do you – like it? I paid a lot of money for it, almost an entire year’s wages!’

She finds herself thinking of Clint, of the fairy tale. She thinks of the dragon, and she thinks of the war, and she swallows against the dryness of her throat. What if the dragon had been cursed the way Clint has been cursed? What if it had been just a boy, cursed for something he could not control? What if – was a life worth that? Human or dragon or what, was it worth a price?

‘A year’s wages?’ she asks, surprised at the steadiness of her voice.

She feels like screaming. Like crying.

Something sweeps across her, calms her, something red and too-hot, a wet cloth against her chilly brow, and she breathes. Wanda, she’s sure. It feels like Wanda.

‘I see,’ she says, and takes a breath. Forcing herself to smile, she looks up, and smiles. It feels very forced, but she keeps on smiling. ‘It’s wonderful. Thank you very much, Lord Hammer.’

Pleased, Lord Hammer goes on his way.

(Later, Stark finds Laura sat in a candle alcove in the stairwell leading to his workshop knees to her chest, twisting the key for the mechanical bird, the box with the dragon scale between her bare feet.

‘Peachy? What’s the matter?’ he asks, ‘I hear our friend Justin outdid himself.’

‘A dragon scale,’ she croaks, and glances at him, tears streaked down her face. ‘A scale! Oh, get rid of it, Tony, please. Get it out of my sight and let me never see it again!’

Stark takes the box and disappears. A few minutes later he returns and lifts her out of the alcove, back onto her feet, her knees knocking. They stand there for a minute or two, and then he pulls her into an embrace. It’s very uncomfortable and unnatural – Stark is not a man for embraces not from Miss Potts – but it’s an embrace, and Laura buries her face in his open collar and weeps. He does not ask, and she does not tell.)

* * *

 

Mister Potter dresses Clint in browns and shades of beige, neutral tones that he murmurs suit his colouring well.

‘You would suit purples and blacks,’ he says, hands on his hips and studying the cut of the suit. ‘I did not think the cut would suit you. You have big shoulders, and are not very narrow.’

‘What does that mean?’

But Mister Potter doesn’t dignify him with much of a response beyond some idle murmuring, and he tugs at Clint’s tails, straightening up the collar.

‘Mm,’ he says. ‘You will do well.’

‘Thank you,’ Clint says, and looks down at the boots, waggling his feet. ‘It’s great.’

Mister Potter nods, and shuffles off back into the workshop, murmuring something about how Clint shouldn’t get the suit dirty before the ball, to take it off and store it safely.

‘And get your hair cut.’

‘Yes, sir.’

There’s something sad in the way Mister Potter freezes and turns back to stare wide-eyed at him, and then shuffles off with a gleeful little laugh.

* * *

 

It's getting to the end of the gift giving for the day; Laura is exhausted, falling asleep in her throne, despite it being barely early afternoon - tea time has not been and gone yet, must to her relief. The boys are restless, and Laura is not far behind, fidgeting and playing with her loose hairs and her skirt and the pile of trinkets on her lap, when an old woman approaches the throne.

There’s been a number of the elderly over the last couple of days, who have told Laura tales of her mother when she was the Princess' age, telling her stories of when Queen Louise was still Princess Louise, freshly married to the then-Prince Dean, and all the things she used to do. Their gifts, although Laura had insisted that the stories were enough, were of her mother's time, commemorative coins and flags and etched glass. It breaks her heart, in the best kind of way, to receive things of her mother's, and she thanks each of them profusely, attempting to the best of her ability to pay them back the worth of the coins, only to be refused to at every turn.

‘You’re the Princess,’ they say, each and every one of them, ‘and it’s your birthday. We wouldn’t dream of asking anything from you.’

But this woman, there's something wrong. Something dark hangs on her shoulders, and Laura sits up straight, clutching the bag of pretty stones one of the poor families had collected for her, and stares.

She doesn't know the woman, but the woman seems to know her. Which, admittedly, is not a surprise, because who doesn't know the Crown Jewel?

'You,' the woman says, throwing back her shawl.

There's no nice way to say it – the woman is a hag. She's been warped by the dark magic that's taken root in her chest, with yellowed, broken teeth and black eyes, foul skin sagging in places and stretched in others, grey and veined black. She's in ragged clothes, her snake's head cane caked with mud.

'Me,' Laura replies, and her knuckles are white around the bag.

'You meddle with fate! With magic far beyond your control, and you toy with it, as if you are above it! Above fate! Above the magic of the Old Ones!'

'Mind your tongue, hag,' Steve barks, taking two steps forward only to stop dead in his tracks.

'You are not one to have an opinion! You reek of Blessings and your own depravity.'

Steve stares, looking no more shocked than if she had smacked him in the jaw.

'You do not get to speak of depravity as though you’re a saint!' Bucky snaps.

The hag cackles, and Laura feels a chill creep under the muslin of her dress, down the front of her stays to bite at her lungs, and she gasps for breath, fingers locking tight.

‘Tell me,’ she demands, and very carefully unlocks her fingers, sets the bag down and gets to her feet. ‘Tell me how I am toying with the Old Ones. Tell me!’

‘Do not step off that dais!’ Monty barks, ‘Laura, do _not_.’

She hesitates, a foot raised to step down onto the tiled floor, and sets it back on the carpet.

‘Tell me!’ she demands, because the hag is still cackling, and a whisper runs through the crowd.

Laura can see her breath fogging, and she clutches at nothing for a moment, fists clenching around air. Everything feels too cold, and she can see the ice forming at the corners of her vision, the way it does in the nightmares, closing around her and turning her into a marble statue composed entirely of ice.

‘There is dragonfire in your blood, burning hot with the age of the betrayal.’

‘What betrayal?’ Laura asks, and takes a step down, just one foot, onto the next step of the dais. ‘What dragonfire? There was no betrayal!’

‘It burns deep in your lineage,’ the hag crows, and whirls in a circle, like she’s casting a spell.

Steve throws himself up the dais, and drags Laura, whose foot is on the last step, back up towards her throne.

‘Stop,’ he whispers to her, ‘stop it.’

She fights to get her arms free, but doesn’t break away from his grip.

‘What lineage?’ Laura crows back, and yanks her shoulder against Steve’s grip. It almost tears her dress. ‘The Faulkners? Are you talking about the Faulkners?’

 ‘Get her out of here!’ Steve demands.

The hag continues to whirl, and runes glow under her feet, drawn by the end of her cane. Around the hall, the crowd grows noisy, yelling and screaming and bickering, a cacophony of noise that echoes and reverberates around the arches and bounces back to them twice as loud.

‘You will know tragedy!’ the hag crows over the din, ‘there will be a great tragedy, and you will know it like you know your own flesh and blood!’

 ‘Enough!’ the king roars, leaping to his feet.

The throne room falls silent, and Laura stops still in Steve’s grip, hanging limp in his hands.

‘I want her gone,’ the king orders, pointing at the hag. ‘I banish you, hag, from this kingdom forever more. Get her out of this room, out of this castle, and do not stop until she is over the border.’

‘Which border?’ Dugan asks, knuckles cracking as he moves to grab the hag.

‘Any border. Just have her out of the kingdom by nightfall.’

The hag cackles, and whirls one last time.

‘Fear not, Dean, my _darling_ ,’ she coos, waggles her cane at him, ‘I shall see myself out.’

And like that, in a poof of foul-smelling smoke, cold as frosted breath, she’s gone. Laura sags against Steve, and clutches at his pelisse as he lowers her back into her throne. The room is achingly silent for several minutes.

Eventually, Laura says, ‘I think I’d like to go to bed.’

No one protests despite the early hour and the queue of people still waiting to give her their gifts, and Laura leaves the room in silence, protected on all sides by the boys.

* * *

A travelling circus comes into town on the Tuesday. Clint had spent most of Monday night in Josie’s tavern, and wakes under a counter in Miss Temple’s pharmacy, with Miss Temple’s feet near his head. He groans, and she taps him with her toes. As his head rights itself, and he finds his senses coming back into order, he realises that Miss Temple is _working_. She’s pleasant and sweet and chats, and Clint stays quiet under the counter until the bell at the door tinkles and Miss Temple is ducking under the counter to press her hand to his clammy forehead.

‘You, sir,’ she laughs, ‘make such a racket when you’re drunk, did you know that? Had half the street up the whole night singing.’

‘I’m a great singer.’

‘Mm-hmm. Of course. Come on, up you get. We need to get you sobered up.’

‘I’m sober.’

‘I could set fire to you with that breath, Mister Barton.’

She drags him by the armpits out from under the counter and onto his feet.

‘You stink,’ she tells him. ‘I know Lower Town is not the best town, but honestly, this is disgusting, go and bathe and sober up.’

He’s drunker than he thinks he is, evidently, because it takes him two hours to stagger back to the woods and find a pool to bathe in. The truth is, he does stink. God knows what he did last night – it’s been such a long time since he got _drunk_ , but there’d been pretty girls plying him with free drinks and Stark had prematurely set fireworks off at the castle, which had only excited everyone.   

Wade appears out of nowhere some time later, when Clint is elbow deep in water and scrubbing himself raw.

'So here's the thing,' Wade says, squatting next to Clint's clothes and resting his elbows on his knees. 'That girl of yours, she's gorgeous. She's absolutely beautiful, and you don't stand a chance.'

Clint glares up through wet eyelashes and swings an open palm through the water, throwing a handful at the crouched madman.

'Shut the fuck up,' he says.

'I'm just saying,' Wade says. 'All I'm saying is that you have a face like a grumpy kitten, and she's a - a - what's that statue of the woman in Mattie's church? The one with the tits.'

'The Madonna,' Clint says, 'she's the Lord's mother, Wade, have some respect.'

Wade gives him a look from beneath his hood, and Clint doesn't know what's worse; that he can tell Wade is giving him a look at all, or that he knows Wade well enough to know which look he's getting.

'Look,' Wade says. 'What I'm saying is that you've got your work cut out for you. Girls like her don't fall for boys like us. This ain't no fairy tale.'

Clint's eyes roll heavenward.

‘Don’t roll your eyes at me, kiddo,’ Wade says, and throws one of Clint’s boots at him.

 Clint catches it and throws it back onto the pile.

‘You do realise my mother used to read me the fairy tale about the body in the pond?’ he asks.

‘That could be anybody.’

‘You keep lying in the pond outside my cottage!’

‘Could be anybody.’

Clint chooses not to dignify him with a response. After a while, he asks why he’s here.

‘It’s not like you to come deliberately looking for me, which you have, because you’re here.’

Wade sniffs, and pulls his hood lower over his face.

‘It’s her birthday tomorrow,’ he says, and knots his fingers into a cat’s cradle of bone before untangling them again. ‘And I just – Clint, old buddy, old pal, listen. She’s – you have a real chance of breaking the curse. I don’t want to deny you that.’

‘Then don’t deny me a single thing,’ Clint tells him. ‘Just keep your mouth shut and let me deny myself. Because you’re right; I don’t have a chance with her. She’s a Pri – she’s Laura fucking Harcourt, and what am I, Wade? I’m a fucking hunter. I’m a fucking _dragon_.’

‘Well, you aren’t, so you can stop saying that now, thank you.’

Clint dunks his head under the water and scrubs at his scalp, and when he surfaces several minutes later, Wade is gone.

When Clint returns to Lower Town, clean and dry and mostly sober, the circus has set up camp in the high street and is performing. A sudden pang of nostalgia almost cripples him, and Clint fingers the knife on his belt when he sees the knife-throwing. The urge to throw his own is there, because he remembers throwing knives like he remembers the morning after the fire, and he remembers throwing knives like he remembers everything from the last three hundred years.

‘God,’ he breathes, and ducks behind the crowd.

A shock of red hair catches his attention, and he follows it, shoving through the crowd to chase it, but it just brings him out on the other side of the street with no sign of the hair at all. Instead, he’s looking right at two men, sword-fighting and putting on a show, laughing and yelling and over-acting, and it’s so ridiculous, so melodramatic, like something from one of the plays he used to sneak in to see with _her_ , the ones that used to make her clap her hands and clutch her face and sigh wistfully in the stables later, as they sat arm-in-arm under a blanket. His belly twists, his lung squeezed by a fist, but it doesn’t hurt as much.

He can almost breathe past it, past the agony.

He must not yet be sober, because he opens his mouth to call out to one of the swordsmen, whose play is done and is now collecting coins in a ratty old hat. There is something familiar in his face, in the squareness of his jaw and the length of his nose, but then he turns fully and the nose is not as broad as it should be, the eyes too green, the wrinkles too few.

Turning away, Clint passes jugglers and acrobats and artists, and slips back into Miss Temple’s shop, crawling under her counters again.

‘You can’t stay there all day,’ she says, ‘I have work to do, and you, sir, need to go bathe in the Queen’s Village if you think you’re getting anywhere near the castle.’

‘I’m just fine here,’ he protests.

Miss Temple sighs in a long-suffering sort of way, and tells him to tuck his feet in.

‘You know,’ she says, late in the afternoon, after Clint has napped under her counters and managed to eat cheese and bread and not vomit despite the ringing behind his eyes, ‘I’ve heard some interesting stories today. They say that Her Highness was cursed today.’

‘Cursed?’ Clint asks, and bangs his head against the counter in his haste to sit up.

‘They say there was some drama at the castle, some hag came to give her a gift and predicted tragedy. Fear-mongering, most likely. Hags haven’t been seen in York for centuries.’

Clint gnaws at the inside of his cheeks for a minute.

‘I hope you’re right,’ he says, but cold sweat is creeping down his neck, and he feels sick to the stomach.

There had been a hag not weeks before Laura Faulkner had been kidnapped, and he had dismissed it then, too. Still, Miss Temple is right; there hasn’t been a sighting of a hag since that night, and Clint wants, desperately, to believe that she’s right still, and it’s just fear-mongering to liven Lower Town up a bit. Not that it needs to be livened up none.

* * *

 

Despite the words of the hag hanging over the castle, Laura’s birthday has a pleasant-looking sort of morning, with dandelion clouds and crystal blue skies. Normally, Laura would look at them with warmth in her chest, but the blue is the shade of her nightmares, and she’s been thinking of the nightmares. Heather comes to get her up, and doesn’t do a very good job of it, climbing into bed next to her with a tray of breakfast goods, and handing her a little folded piece of paper, sealed with the Falsworth stamp.

‘It’s from us,’ she says, and bumps Laura’s shoulder with her own. ‘Monty and I, and Tommy, too.’

Laura looks at the seal, and eases her finger under it, casting Heather a look or three that make the Lady laugh.

‘You really should give up this chambermaid nonsense,’ Laura tells her, routine, and routinely, Heather laughs.

‘Oh, don’t be daft. You’d all be lost without me. I have to do half the cleaning at the estate, too, for they’ve no clue what to do.’

‘Embarrassing,’ Laura says, and opens the paper.

Immediately, she screams and throws herself on her cousin-in-law, peppering kisses all over her face.

‘I’m so pleased!’ she screeches, and Heather screeches back, because there’s no other answer than to screech.

Helen has written a little missive to Lady Falsworth, in her elegant, uniform hand, informing her that yes, her suspicions are confirmed and she is indeed pregnant with her and Monty’s second child, due six months from now.

The screeching rouses Natasha, who comes in, looks at them sprawled over the bed and screaming like children, and turns back into her own chamber. Lucky is howling along with their hollering, tail wagging at the happiness in his momma, and he doesn’t stop yowling until Natasha returns with treats to shut him up.

* * *

 

Clint stands in the foyer and breathes. He focuses on that for a while, watching the pretty dresses and tall hats milling around, the cacophony of polite banter burning in his ears. There's too much of everything, too much too see and hear and smell, and Clint finds himself missing the days where he had to be shouted at to hear even a whisper. But now he can hear everything, every word and every clink of glass, every shuffle of soft soled shoe.

A man he doesn't recognise, let alone know, presses a glass of something off-yellow and sparkling into his hand and grins.

'Cheer up, old boy,' the man says. 'This is Her Highness's birthday ball. Plenty of girls without a partner.'

A partner isn't the problem. Clint knows who he wants to dance with, but that won't happen, he's sure. They must be queueing all night long for a set with Her Highness, and Laura would do her best to dance with them all.

As the man walks away, Clint having not responded and thereby bored him, Clint finds himself thinking about Laura after tonight's ball is over, crawling into a hot bath to take the ache out of her calves. If she's anything like he remembers, she favours soft, fragrance-warm oils that leave her soft and smelling sweet. She'd learnt, eventually, that honey did not make a good oil, and the memory of her sticky fingers brings a bitter smile to his face.

Downing the pisswater in one deep slug, Clint drops the glass onto a passing servant's tray and picks his way through to the great hall, where the dancing is taking place.

He hears Laura before he sees her, hears her laughter and the whoosh of breath as she's swept off her feet and lifted into the air. Dugan, Clint reasons, but of course the strongman would take every opportunity to lift the princess off her feet. Then the crowd parts, just briefly enough for him to catch a glimpse of her.

She's ethereal, divinity made flesh, and her heart shines brighter than ever. Every inch of her is immaculate, her hair in perfect ringlets and braided where it isn't, tumbling over her shoulders and woven with flowers, glittering with her crown, balanced perfectly within the curls. Her gown is the deepest purple, night-dark and embroidered with the most intricate floral beadwork he's seen, making it glitter like stars in the night sky. It must have been commissioned for her, specifically for the ball, because the darkness of her gown and the earth of her hair sets off the sunlight of her skin, of her heart.

Clint forgets how to breathe, and stands there gaping like a fish.

'She's beautiful, isn't she?'

'Miss Romanov. You startled me.'

'Laura has that effect on people. I'm rather pleased with how her hair's come along. It's not the fashion of course, but when she twirls, it haloes ever so nicely.'

'It's wonderful.'

In truth, every inch of Laura is wonderful and Clint finally starts to breathe again, choking on his tongue as his lungs gulp in air. Miss Romanov smiles, and hooks her hand into his elbow.

'I assume you know all the current dances?'

'They haven't changed much in three hundred years.'

Natasha smiles indulgently, and lets go of Clint in the correct place for the start of the next dance. Laura is dancing with some fellow Clint doesn't recognise, and he doesn't feel jealous, not at all. Laura is the heiress of York, the Crown Princess, of course she'll be dancing with everybody and their father. Clint doesn't have any claim to her, or to a dance with her, and being jealous would be stupid. Why would he be jealous of that ugly toad, anyway?

'Who's that man Laura's dancing with?' Clint asks, and Natasha looks on their next turn.

'Lord Justin Hammer,' she replies. 'He supposedly works with Stark, inventing weaponry and devices for the nobility, but truth be told, all of his inventions are shit. And he upset Laura awfully when he gave her his gift the other morning.’

‘Oh?’ Clint asks, ‘what gift was that?’

‘A dragon scale. Laura had Stark dispose of it as soon as she was able, so it’ll never be seen again.’

'I see,' Clint says, and feels a glower on his face as he makes eye contact with Hammer.

'Get ready,' Natasha calls from across the room, and before Clint has time to ask what he needs to prepare for, they're going into a cotillion, and she's skipping between partners, swapping places with Laura. It shoves her across the space to line her up with Clint, and she smiles when she sees him.

'Hello!' she calls, and Clint steps in to take her hand for the turn, and if his free hand touches her back, well, that doesn't matter, no one's going to notice.

'Hello,' he replies.

'I wasn't expecting to see you here,' she admits. 'I thought - with all the princesses here, you'd have stayed away.'

'And miss your birthday?' he laughs, gritting his teeth around the ripple of pain in his gums. 'Don't be ridiculous. I had an invitation.'

Laura laughs, knows the lie when she hears it.

'Which invitation was that, sir? One from me? Or did it come from somewhere closer to home?'

'Well, you told me to come, and that sounds like an invitation to me.'

Laura laughs, and the Lords and Ladies around them all try to subtly stare at Clint, work out who he is to have the Princess laughing so much.

'Your exact words, I believe, were "you should come to a ball," so I chose the most appropriate one to come to.’

‘Of course you did. Though I am curious as to how you convinced the footmen.'

'Who says I convinced them?' Clint snorts.

Laura takes his hand for the twist, and laughs, twirls again, even though she’s not supposed to. It gets them looked at, and the rest of the set, as Laura skips around them, starts muttering to each other. Who is this gentleman dancing with the Princess instead of Lord Hammer, as the set had started? Who is the gentleman to begin with? He’s not one someone anybody recognises, and his fashions are wrong – how did he get into the ball with knee-high boots?

But Laura doesn’t seem to notice, hiking her skirt and crossing the set to circle back to her original place, laughing and joking and teasing. Clint’s ears are red, his cheeks mottled, but he picks his feet up in turn, loops around to match her steps.

Too soon, it feels like, though a good twenty minutes has passed, the set is over, and Laura grabs his arm as the group disbands to make way for the next. She’s promised a dance to General Ross, but she drags Clint into the throng of people before he can stop her, and they disappear.

'Follow me,' Laura says, 'we'll get out of the hall through that door.'

Clint follows her in the right direction, even though he's supposed to lead. She guides him through the crowd, and towards the doors. Bucky spreads his hands at her when he sees her leading Barton away, and Laura gives him an over-exaggerated wink as they pass, disappearing through the doors before he can stop her.

‘Ah, that’s better,’ she says, ‘I can breathe at last. It’s so _busy_ in there! I didn’t think my father was going to invite so many people.’

‘I didn’t think he’d invite so many men,’ Clint says, and Laura tugs him towards the servants’ stairwell.

‘No?’

‘I knew he’d invite every eligible bachelor in the kingdom,’ he corrects, ‘I just didn’t think there’d be so many of them.’

Laura looks at him over her shoulder as she leads him up the stairs, and has a look of genuine confusion on her face.

‘What?’ she asks.

‘You – you hadn’t noticed? He’s trying to find you a suitor.’

‘Poppycock.’

They pass a servant on the way, and Laura just smiles at them.

‘We’re not up to anything,’ she promises, and the poor girl just nods and scurries away.

‘Everyone’s going to think we’re up to something,’ Clint tells the back of her head, but Laura just snorts and pokes her head around the door she leads him to before letting them spill out into her bedchamber.

‘Welcome to my rooms,’ she says, ‘make yourself comfortable.’

She pulls her tiara off, setting it nicely on the desk, and stretches her arms above her head with a heavy sigh.

‘Sweet relief!’ she laughs, ‘I _hate_ balls so much. Everyone wants to dance with me, and my feet can only take so much.’

Clint perches himself on the edge of her bed and watches her step out of her shoes, padding on bare toes across the room to gather water and check her reflection and relaxing her dance-tight calves. She’s beautiful in the light of the early moon, and Clint smiles, watches her as she throws the balcony doors open, standing there ethereal and untouchable, the line of her back long and straight and her hair silver in the moon.

‘Laura?’

She hums, and turns back from the balcony.

‘Yes? Are you well?’

‘I’m well,’ Clint assures her, and gestures at the bed next to him. ‘Sit, please? You standing there makes me nervous.’

Bemused, but agreeable, she comes to sit beside him, and settles herself, hand on his thigh and head on his shoulder. They sit like that for a few minutes, his hand tracing patterns against her knuckles, and his cheek against her hair.

‘You’re smelling my hair,’ she teases, because he’s breathing deeply.

‘More you in general,’ he admits, ‘you’re smelling especially lovely tonight.’

‘It’s the soap I used,’ she tells him, ‘the soap-makers in the Queen’s Village made up some especially for my birthday, using their finest honey.’

‘It’s wonderful,’ he hums, and inhales over-exaggeratedly into her hair, making her giggle.

Her fingers brush against his thigh, picking at the lint and stray hairs from Lucky that she finds, and the ball carries on downstairs, filtering up through the open balcony doors and through the cracks around the main bedroom door, filling the comfortable silence they’re sat in.

‘It’s nice,’ she says, ‘sitting with you like this. Are you sure you’re well? If you need to go – if being here is causing you pain, don’t feel like you have to stay.’

‘I do have to stay,’ he argues, ‘because I haven’t given you your gift yet.’

‘Gift?’

‘Well, it _is_ your birthday,’ Clint says, ‘and I’d be terribly improper if I didn’t come bearing gifts.’

‘You’re wearing knee-high boots to a ball,’ she reminds him, and he just gets to his feet, acting like he didn’t hear.

She frowns when she sees him go to the wardrobe on the far side of the room, disappearing behind the open door for a second before reappearing, holding a hessian sack in one hand, and his other fist clenched tight.

‘This is for you,’ Clint says, lifting the offerings, and Laura raises an eyebrow.

‘What on earth, Clint?’ she asks, and goes to get to her feet, only for him to shoot her a warning look that keeps her backside firmly on her coverlet. ‘You didn’t have to get me anything. Just having you here is enough of a gift.’

‘Nonsense,’ he sniffs, and comes to stand by her feet, thrusting the hessian sack in her direction. ‘It’s not much, but I thought – I thought you might like it.’

‘How the devil did you get it into the castle?’ she asks him.

‘Sergeant Barnes helped,’ he admits, ‘I snuck over the wall during his patrol two nights ago, and I asked him to hide it in here for you. I thought – if I didn’t manage to sneak in, you’d find it anyway, and I thought – I hoped you’d know it was from me.’

Laura takes the bag at last, and gives him a look before pulling the sack open. Inside is a pile of leather, and she spills it out over her bed, breath catching at what presents itself.

He’s made her a set of archery equipment; quiver, glove and arm guard, pouches, the whole set.

‘You said you liked archery,’ he says, shuffling on his feet. ‘And I thought – I have a lot of leather, so I thought you might like a set.’

‘I do like archery,’ she breathes, and picks up the glove, tooled carefully to have a swirling design of beautifully uneven roses across the back.

It fits her fingers perfectly, new-leather tight but not uncomfortable, and she waggles her fingers, tests the give.

‘It’s perfect,’ she says, and forgets to take it off, because she’s looking at the arm-guard and the quiver, both tooled with the same rose design, sprawling across the leather in perfectly imperfect stems and leaves and petals. The set is wonderful, and she’s never seen anything like it.

‘It must have cost a fortune,’ she says, ‘I’ve paid too much for less than this.’

‘Well, not really. I did all the tooling and cutting and sewing and that. Really, it only cost me the price of getting the leather tanned,’ he shrugs, ‘and I got a deal with the tannery in Lower Town, what with getting them all the good hides.’

‘My father’s hides, you mean,’ she says, but she’s grinning, and he grins back, lopsided and boyish and so, so handsome.

‘Perhaps. You like it?’

‘You _made_ this, Clint,’ she says, ‘you _made_ me a quiver and arm guards and all the other things I need for archery, and you just – you _made_ this.’

‘I did make it.’

She launches herself off the bed and into his unprepared arms, pulling him down by the hair to press a thousand kisses to his face and especially his mouth. Clint laughs, startled, and does his best to push her back onto her heels and free his mouth.

‘I made you something else,’ he says, ‘it’s not – it’s not as good as the archery, ‘cause I never made this kind of thing before, but I thought – I thought you might like it. Saw it and thought of you and so I – close your eyes.’

She stands there, close enough to breathe the same air and feel the beat of his heart against her chest, and does as she’s told, straightening her spine and lifting her chin to shut her eyes nice and neat.

He moves, steps near-silent in the empty space of her room, and then his fingers are brushing the back of her neck, sweeping the loose curls of her hair away from her neck and over her shoulder.

‘You wore your hair down,’ he murmurs, close to her ear, and his breath is fire-hot, prompting a shiver.

‘I did,’ she says, ‘you said you like it down.’

He does like it down, and he assures her as much, and then something cold settles just under the lowest point of her necklace, perfectly in her décolletage, and he fumbles against her nape for a second.

‘Can you manage?’ she asks, and he makes a scoffing noise.

‘Yes. Yes, I can. There, there we go. You can open your eyes now.’

It takes her a second to adjust, with the low light in the room, but she ducks her head to fish down the front of her dress to retrieve the pendant he’s hung there. It’s a little golden stone, the colour of the freshest honey, wrapped in gold wire and hooked onto a chain, and she twists it between her fingers, watching the rough facets catch the light.

Clint’s chin drops heavy onto her shoulder and his arms wrap around her belly, palms burning through the dark silk to her core, and pull her back into him. He’s a warm weight against her back, and she’s sure, even as she relaxes against him, lets him take her weight, that he can feel the moths and butterflies fluttering against his hands.

‘Do you like it?’ he asks, quiet, and his fingers twitch, tickle her belly, and she shivers, swats at his hands with her free one.

‘I love it,’ she says, and grips one of his fingers tight. ‘It’s beautiful. Wherever did you find it?’

 ‘There are some caves,’ he murmurs, and twists his finger in her grip, wraps his hand around hers. ‘On the far side of the woods, buried deep under the trees. It’s hard to find the entrance, so I used them as hiding places, when I’m far from the cottage. There’s a vein of them, running deep into the caves, far below the forest. I found this one loose near the entrance a month ago, and I thought – it’s the same colour as your eyes, when they glow gold. The exact same gold. I thought – it’s not the best, I know. It’s not the same quality as the pieces they make you in the Queen’s Village, but I never made a necklace before. Or any jewellery at all. Took me a while to cut the stone proper.’

‘It’s wonderful,’ she whispers, and lets the stone fall back down the front of her dress. ‘I shan’t ever take it off.’

Her fingers find the ribbon around his wrist, still tied there the same way she tied it a week ago, and she smiles, twists in his arms to loop hers around his neck, pressing a soft, gentle kiss to his mouth.

He hums against her lips, and flattens his hands against her back, pulls her as close as she can get. The kiss stays gentle, dove-tailed lips and slow breaths, Laura’s fingers curling against the sand-brown of his hair, twitching in time with the brush of his mouth, and she sighs quietly, relaxed.

Downstairs, she knows the ball is still playing, the guests still laughing and drinking and dancing, and she knows that Natasha will be placating the boys as best she can, keeping them from bursting in and causing a ruckus. She knows that some of the guests have seen her sneak off, and knows that they will be demanding to know who the stranger stealing their Princess away is, and she knows that there is not an answer to be given that will pacify them.

What can they say? That a man with a cursed name and a cursed soul has stolen her heart and damned it alongside his own? That Clint Barton, three hundred years old and responsible for all that made this moment possible, has taken her and changed her, and made her his own? That he lives in the woods with not a single coin to his name, and lives by committing crimes against king and country? It would start a riot.

She rakes her hand through his hair, laughing at the spring of the short locks against her palm, and cups his cheek.

‘Clint,’ she whispers, ‘I should go back downstairs. They’ll be missing me.’

‘Mm,’ he nods, and rubs their noses. ‘Do I get another dance? Or have I had my set?’

‘You can have all the dances you wish,’ she assures him, and presses another dozen kisses to his mouth, humming with each that connects.

‘Then, My Lady, I’ll return you to your celebrations,’ he proclaims, overdramatic, and yet so sweet, extending his hand and leading her to the servant’s door; better to sneak back into the ballroom that way.

She’s swept away from him as soon as they reappear in the crowd by a man bearing enough of a similarity to the Falsworth boy to declare him family, and she clings to his hand for as long as she can, until she’s out of reach. Clint tries not to be jealous; he cannot have a monopoly on her. At most, he can have two sets, and then she is to spend the rest of the night with other partners. Her cousin, some older member of the Falsworth family (Monty’s uncle, he learns later, Laura’s third cousin once removed, and more of a father to her than her own blood), has every right to dance with her, and he cannot be so selfish as to take that from her.

He absolutely is so selfish as to want to, but he has eyes on him, and he is obliged to ask the Ladies sitting to dance, lest he be cast from the ball.

 _Christ above_ , he finds himself mouthing to his boots, because there isn’t a single Lady in the room that doesn’t set his teeth on edge. So he sneaks around the edge of the room, avoiding eye contact, and keeping one eye open for the boys, who he doesn’t particularly want to cross, and the other on Laura, who is watching him every time she completes a turn, barely paying the slightest attention to Mister Falsworth, who doesn’t seem overly offended. He’s probably used to her distraction, Clint reasons, because why wouldn’t he be used to her distraction?

‘You are Mister Barton,’ says a quiet voice from a quiet corner, and Clint whirls on his heel, searching wildly for the origin.

A pretty girl, barely old enough to debut, and a taller, equally young, boy stand half-hidden behind the pillars. She has dark hair, swept up into a convenient style, and the boy is prematurely grey. They stink of curses, and he takes half a step back when he smells the same curse on them as he’s forever smelling on his own skin.

‘You know me?’

‘We know Laura,’ the girl says, and reaches for him.

He doesn’t take her hand, and resolutely puts his behind his back, looking prim and proper to any who see only him.

‘You know Laura,’ he echoes.

‘She saved us,’ the boy says, ‘from Baron Strucker. We are weapon, to fight curse. She knows you.’

‘We know you,’ the girl adds, as though that explains it.

Their heavy accents betray them; Laura had not mentioned rescuing children from Baron Strucker – Strucker, Strucker, he knows that name, it’s from a kingdom not far away, known for, for, for it’s madness. Bavaria, he remembers, Bavaria is the mad kingdom. Barney had – Barney had – Heinrich. Heinrich was from Bavaria.

He hasn’t thought about Heinrich for centuries.

He hasn’t thought about Barney in longer.

‘Your brother,’ the girl says, and he glances up from his boots; she’s staring at him as though she sees through him, her eyes glowing like fire.

‘What?’

‘You have brother. Charles. You never say Charles. I can see fire. In a castle. It’s purple. The hag said – she said – she said there was dragonfire. She did not say colour. Just fire. Betrayal.’

Hag? Dragonfire? The fire in the castle could be – it could be Heinrich. It could be.

But it could not be Heinrich.

Clint backs a few steps away, and glances over his shoulder to where Laura is facing away, waiting for her partner to finish his turn.

She doesn’t feel him looking at her, and so doesn’t turn to see his distress.

‘How do you know that?’ he asks the girl.

‘I see thinking.’

Clint stares at her, and then whirls for the doors, rushing outside.

He’s breathing hard, his lungs empty no matter how he gasps, and he finds himself staggering into the rose garden, flopping onto a bench and putting his head between his knees.

‘Oh God,’ he moans, and clutches at his hair. ‘Oh, _God_.’

‘Barton?’

His head jerks up; the man-mountain, Dugan, looks uncomfortable in his uniform, correctly worn for a change, and clean besides. There’s concern on his face, a concern that only grows once he gets a good look at the man.

‘You look like shit. Do you need a glass of water? The champagne they serve at these things is always going to my head. Give me a good old-fashioned ale any day of the week.’

Clint groans again, and goes to bury his head for a second time, but Dugan grips his shoulders, keeps him upright. Clint’s vision swims – what did the girl do to him? He can barely focus his gaze on Dugan, and he’s not had this since _before_.

‘Stay there, kiddo, I’ll go and get Laura; she’s probably looking for you already.’

‘No,’ he says, ‘no, don’t – let her – let her dance. I’ll be fine in a minute. I’ll be fine.’

Dugan hesitates. ‘I’ll let her know you’re out here all the same.’

Clint grunts, and doesn’t look up from the floor.

He listens to the sound of couples sneaking around the gardens, giggling and fumbling with their hands and mouths as they flit between the hedges, and listens to the twittering of the songbirds, the echoing laughter and song of the ballroom. He smells the sweet foods and the bitter drinks, the soft rosewater and fragranced soaps of the Ladies and the sweat of the Gentlemen. It’s too much and not enough, and then, in the middle of it all, the shush of footsteps, drowning everything else out, and he finds himself jerking to his feet.

‘Clint?’

‘Laura,’ he breathes, and moves to meet her, turning the corner at the same time she does, crashing into her.

He catches her arms before she tumbles, and she laughs.

‘Hello, honey,’ she says, and catches her breath.

She rushed to come to him as soon as Dugan had mentioned him being her, and something twists in his chest, something that hasn’t twisted since the first time _she_ held his hand.

‘Laura,’ he says, and she wriggles her arms free, takes his hands.

‘You look terrible,’ she says, searching his face. ‘Come with me, we’ll get away from the castle for a while. I told Steve I was coming to find you, he knows where I am.’

‘Shouldn’t you say you’re going?’

‘There’s nowhere for me to go beside the garden,’ she says, ‘and he’ll know where I’m taking you.’

Clint isn’t so sure he trusts her, but he lets her lead him all the same, and they walk in gentle quiet for a minute. He focuses on the bob of her hair as she strides, the gentle breeze lifting the honey of her skin, the warm, sweaty weight of her palm in his (though he will admit the sweat is mostly his), the shush of her soft soled pumps against the cobbles. His mouth burns with the feel of hers against it, the weight of her lips pleasant enough to make him shudder.

‘Are you cold?’ she asks, glancing over her shoulder.

‘No,’ he says, ‘no, just – remembering the kissing.’

‘Here,’ she says, and gestures at a summer house, a pretty little thing, open and warm and inviting, and so quintessentially Laura.

She drags him inside, and they sit in the quiet contentment of the enclosed space. He can barely hear the ball from here, can only really hear the songbirds and the beat of her heart, and that’s fine by him. For a few minutes, she watches him, and he wonders what she’s looking for.

‘The colour’s coming back to your face,’ she says, when he asks her what she’s watching. ‘It’s good. You were ever so grey. I thought you were going to faint when I saw you.’

‘I wouldn’t faint,’ he assures her, ‘I was just – it was too much, the party. The people.’

 He thinks about the girl and the grey-haired boy, the way she’d looked at him as though she could see the dragon, and his skin shivers, his belly knotting. He’s always able to feel the dragon under his skin, always able to feel it burning at his heart and his stomach and his lungs, but it’s like he can feel her gaze burning at it, too.

‘How was it?’ Laura asks, snapping him out of his thoughts, ‘the kissing, I mean.’

'You're terrible at kissing,' he tells her, and Laura sniffs.

'Then show me how to kiss,' she teases, 'use these skills you have.'

Laura tries not to be jealous of where he learnt those skills, because a Princess three hundred years ago is very different to a Princess now. And Clint is an eager teacher, cupping her face in both hands to teach her mouth how to move.

She's a fast learner, and soon, he's slamming her back into the wall, clutching at her as desperately as she clutches at him. She cries out, muffled by his mouth on hers, and he only stops kissing her when her lungs are burning. Panting, she rolls her shoulders and arches her spine; the wall is very hard and Clint is not exactly gentle.

'Did I hurt you?' he asks, and Laura shakes her head.

'No,' she breathes, runs her hands over his hair, linking her fingers behind his neck. 'No, I'm fine. I want more of these kissing lessons, however. You're a terrible tutor.'

Laughing, he ducks his head to kiss her again, from her forehead to her eyelids to her nose to the corner of her mouth. Laura whines, tugs at the soft hair at his nape, but Clint only bites a smile into her pout and drags his mouth to her neck.

'Oh,' she sighs, and tips her head to the side, giving him space.

Her hair, being loose, will hide and marks he makes. But she's seen the rings of bruises on Monty's arms from his son, and on Heather's neck from her husband, and she's not so sure she wants that kind of purple stain tomorrow morning.

'Take care,' she whispers.

'I know how to not make marks,' he murmurs back, and grips her skirt tight. 'Hold on.'

She digs her nails into his shoulders, and bursts out in giggles when he hikes her skirt above her knees, lifting her by the hips up the eight inches between them. She wraps her legs around him, and shudders.

This is the kind of nonsense she confessed for, and here she is, sinning the exact sin she did penance for.

‘You’re ruining my chances at getting into Heaven,’ she chuckles, and he digs his nails into her thighs. ‘I had to confess dreaming about this, and I did my penance, and now look at this mess you’re getting me into.’

‘I’m not getting you into anything,’ he says, nose dragging against her jaw as he finds her mouth again.

‘I could get you into me,’ she says, and he goes still for a second, two, and then barks out a laugh.

‘You’re serious,’ he says, when she doesn’t laugh as well.

‘I am,’ she nods.

It would be easy to do it, too. The breeches Matthew had had Miss Page acquire for him are cut to the current fashion, and he’s not wearing anything beneath them. Neither, he thinks, is the Princess wearing anything beneath her dress, because Laura had not been wearing drawers the last two times he had seen her, given that he’d seen her naked, and she’d not taken them off or put them on, and that said everything, really.

It would be so easy. Just shuffle her skirts a little more, unbutton his breeches. It’d be so easy.

He almost drops her when he reaches for her hands, already between them, working on getting the buttons open.

‘No,’ he says, ‘Laura, no, no, I can’t – I can’t risk it. I can’t let it happen.’

She takes it well, and stops fumbling with his trousers, loops her arms back around his neck.

‘Put me down,’ she says, ‘it’s – you’re right, you’re right. Put me down, please.’

He eases her feet back onto the floor, and holds her hips, because she shows no sign of wanting to back away, and Clint doesn’t feel particularly inclined to let her go.

‘We can keep kissing, though, can’t we? We can still do that.’

‘We can still do that,’ he grins, and ducks his head to meet her mouth.

* * *

 

‘Laura’s been gone a while,’ Bucky muses, leaning against a pillar and looking nonchalant despite the tightness in his expression, and Steve hums. ‘She’ll have taken him to the summer house. That’s where she always goes.’

Steve nods, and rolls his shoulders; he hates these balls and court functions, and all this pomp and circumstance. He can’t do his job properly when there’s too many people. Not that he can do his job properly, with the way Laura’s been carrying on recently. But he can still keep her safe, and if that means going and interrupting some private moment for the sake of interrupting it, then that’s what he’ll do. Bucky enjoys balls, enjoys dancing with every pretty girl he can get his hands on, and the pretty boys besides, but he’s still thinking about the hag’s words, Steve knows. They’re all thinking about the hag’s words.

He sends Bucky to fish out the rest of the Queen’s Guard, and heads for the stairs down into the garden, passing the twins on his way.

‘Barton,’ Wanda says, and Steve feels her grab his wrist, even though she’s not in arm’s reach. ‘Laura is with Barton.’

‘I know,’ he says, and twists his hand, breaks the grip she has on him.

‘He is cursed,’ Pietro adds, and Steve nods.

‘I’m aware.’

‘There is danger,’ Wanda says, and something crosses her face, something Steve doesn’t recognise, but doesn’t trust. ‘In Barton. His brother.’

‘His brother?’

But he never gets an answer, because an immense screech tears through the sky, rattling the open doors. The ball comes to an abrupt halt, a hush falling across the great hall.

Within seconds, the Queen’s Guard have rushed to the top of the stairs, and watch in horror as the summer house explodes, sending the Princess flat onto her back several feet away. They’re frozen, watching the blazing _thing_ that had probably once been Clint Barton burst out of the wreckage, burning like embers and with horns protruding from his brow, purple with scales and small, bloody wings growing against his naked spine. He takes off down the garden and through the wall, leaving a trail behind him. Laura rolls over, and her scream of Barton’s name is audible from here.

'Guards!' Steve bellows, 'move!'                 

They leap into action, but it's too late for them to reach Laura, because she's already on her feet and running as fast as she can, sprinting straight into the scorched path Clint has left behind.

'Laura!' they all bellow at intervals, but Laura is nothing if not single-minded, and she keeps running, racing forwards to catch up to the hunter.

Bucky and Monty catch up first, having leapt over the balustrade instead of taking the stairs, but Laura's already caught up to Clint, and her hands are on his face, holding him close to her, pressing their noses together. His horns are already feet long, his body blazing, but Laura doesn't seem to notice, or particularly care, staying as close as she can. She's whispering to him, and the fire dims, momentarily. She's calming him down, slowly but surely.

Everything changes in a split second.

Laura is shoved back, and she hits the earth several feet away, unmoving. Bucky rushes to her side, fingers under her jaw, finding her pulse. She groans, and Bucky breathes deep, turns to call Monty back, but Clint has already flared up, fire and brimstone and fangs inches long.

The blow Monty takes to the chest knocks him off his feet and a few dozen away from them. He tumbles when he hits the ground, and doesn't get back up, lying in a crumpled heap face-first in the dirt.

'Monty!' Bucky yells, but that just draws Clint's attention.

Laura is still groaning, trying to push herself onto her elbows, but is too winded and aching too greatly to manage it.

Perhaps Clint sees him as a threat, perhaps he considers Laura to be in danger. Perhaps he doesn't like another man muscling in on his prey. But Clint comes for him and Bucky rises to meet the almost-dragon, the knife from his boot in hand.

Clint twists, and Bucky's wild, arching swing is too wide, too committed, and it leaves him open for retaliation.

The retaliation comes with jaws clamping tight about Bucky's unprotected arm, near to the shoulder, and in one spray of blood and one wretched scream, Bucky's arm is gone. His severed hand falls limp on the scorched grass, knife falling away and Clint spits out the bone as muscle and wool of his arm, snarling away.

By now the others have arrived, and split, some going to Monty's still form, and the rest to Laura, helping her up onto her feet. Steve goes to Bucky, who's clutching at his stump and wailing.

'Clint,' Laura is saying when Steve looks up from applying a tourniquet to Bucky's arm.

She’s reaching up to touch his face, brushing the scales and ridges of bone at his cheeks, drawing him down to bump their noses, his flatter and hotter and not so human anymore.

'You're fine, my darling, you're fine. All is well. I'm here.'

Before Steve can warn her, before any of them can howl at her to back away, to give Clint the space to calm down, she whispers something even Steve with his Blessed hearing cannot hear, brushing it into Clint’s mouth, and Clint lashes out again.

There is no noise, no visible movement. There is nothing for a second, two.

And then all they can see are the claws protruding from her back, purple silk very quickly turning liquid black, and the absolute horror spreading across Clint's warped features.

'No,' he chokes out through his fangs, 'no, no, no, no!'

He jerks back, and Laura staggers, unsupported now, clutching at her belly. Her breath chokes in her throat, and Bucky's wailing takes on a different tone. The Guard are howling, and Clint stumbles backwards, blazing as the curse rips his bones apart, and he screeches. Fire lights the sky, purple and gold and ice blue, but only the onlookers at the castle see it. The Guard aren’t looking.

Laura crumples, but Steve is there, catches her before she hits the dirt. Laura looks up at him, eyes glazed, and pats his face, smears blood down his cheek.

'Don't hurt him,' she chokes, 'he's - he's - '

But she never finishes her thought.

Steve stands there holding her and staring blankly at her face, streaked with blood and dirt.

'Steve!' Bucky roars after too long has passed, 'get her to Sam!'

'But you -'

'I can still walk, and they'll carry Monty if he can't. We'll be fine. Laura won't, unless! You! Do! Something!'

Steve wants to tell him the punctuation was utterly unnecessary, because he got it the first time. He sweeps Laura's limp, bloody body into his arms, holds her tight, and runs. Peggy is carrying him, he's sure, because it seems that there's no weight to his limbs, to Laura. He doesn’t trip over anything, doesn’t tire, doesn’t _anything_. He just runs and runs and bursts through the doors back into the castle, hollering for Sam at the top of his lungs.

Natasha finds him first, and she rushes him through the screaming crowd towards the infirmary, shouldering people out of the way for him, and promises to get Sam to him by the time he’s there.

Steve takes the stairs three at a time and kicks the infirmary door open, just as Sam rounds the corner from the servant’s stairwell.

‘Steve!’

Sam sounds very far away, even though he’s right there, his hands on Steve’s arms, and then they’re on Laura, and he’s moving away, already bloody.

‘Sam, please, please, I don’t – God, just –‘

He’s aware that he’s falling apart, and as Sam sweeps his arms across a table, clears it of everything to give Steve space to lay Laura flat, he forces himself to take a breath. He takes one breath, and then another, and another again.

Laura is pale, and bloody and filthy, her dress tattered, her hair tangled and wet. She looks the worst he’s ever seen her, and Sam does – does – he does something. Steve doesn’t pay attention, watching Laura’s face and stroking her scalp, a repetitive, jagged movement. He’s vaguely aware that the castle is in uproar, that there is screaming and hollering going on downstairs. He’s vaguely aware of the rest of the Queen’s Guard arriving, the warmth of Bucky near him pushing against the bubble around him, but not breaking it. He’s vaguely aware of the King hollering in the doorway. He’s vaguely aware of Natasha telling him, bluntly, to fuck off. There is so much happening, but it all feels very far away, like he’s underwater, like the world is falling apart and he can only watch it from afar, helpless to stop it.

‘Sam,’ he chokes out, when the silence drags on and on and on and on and becomes so unbearable he thinks he’s going deaf. ‘Sam, please.’

'Steve, she's - she's dead.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well then


	7. The Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the ball, and the month that follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for some blood

Steve lunges across the table and grabs Sam by the front of his apron, yanking him forward until their noses are touching. It’s out of character for him, Steve knows, it’s not like him at all. He doesn’t do the grabbing and yanking and snarling, but here he is.

'Say that again. I dare you.'

'She's dead,' Sam tells him, and there’s a tightness to his voice, a frown audible in the way he says it. He’s not happy about having to say it. He could be on the edge of tears. 'She had fucking claws through her gut, Steve. She was dead before you got back to the castle.'

As if to spite him, Laura chokes on a breath, spraying blood and spit and bile. The two men spring apart, and stare at her. Her eyes are shut, her skin pale and her mouth as purple as her gown had been, but her heart is beating, her chest rising and falling with barely-there breaths, rapid and shallow and rasping.

'Heart of molten gold,' Steve breathes, and runs his hand over her hair. ‘Sam, I don't care how long it takes, you save her.'

From behind him, at the same time, Bucky slurs, 'I'm getting Ross and Banner. They might have a potion or three.'

'Sit your ass down,' Jim snaps, 'you can barely stand up straight, I'm not letting you out of this room.'

Sam looks up then, as Jim slams into the door to hurry out, and notices Bucky's pale countenance, his missing arm.

'Hell's bells,' he breathes. 'Barnes, take a seat, you'll have to wait.'

'Give me a hot iron,' Bucky laughs, 'I'll cauterise it.'

'And die of the infection? Don't be a prick.'

'Monty was also injured,' Steve says, and keeps his hand on Laura's neck, pressed tight to her pulse, fluttering like the butterflies he used to catch in the cage of his hands for her before the sickness almost took him.

They'd been children then, Laura five and Steve had felt old compared, nearly twelve, and she'd been so excited to see the butterflies on Steve's palms, fluttering but staying where they were. Laura had always loved the insects Steve showed her, had always looked forward to the days the Royal Artist's apprentice, as he'd been then, would visit.

'I'm fine,' Monty rasps, and snaps Steve back to the present, 'focus on my fucking cousin.'

Ross and Banner burst into the room, Natasha hot on their heels.

'I found Erskine,' she says. 'He was on the guest list. He's collecting things from Stark and then he'll be here.'

'Romanov,' Steve barks, but his anger is not for her. 'You come with me. Dugan, Jacques, Gabe, you too. Jim, do whatever the doctors tell you to do.'

Ross is hacking at Laura's gown with a scalpel, ripping it apart while Banner does his best to peel it away. Though they’ve all seen Laura naked, having walked in on her dressing and undressing and climbing in and out of the bath as she does, day-to-day, there is something – something – something _worse_ about seeing it like this. Her belly is in tatters, her skin red-wet from neck to mid-thigh, and there are definite, ragged holes where the claws pierced her. It’s grave, and terrible to witness.

'We need water. Clean water. We have to get her cleaned up before we can do anything.'

Jim hurries to do as he's ordered and Steve leads the others back through the gardens.

'We're going after Barton. I want him alive.'

'You say that like you think you'd be able to kill him,' Natasha snorts.

'I want it to be clear,' Steve snarls, and heads off down the scorch marks towards the hole in the wall that Barton had made. 'I don't want anybody to try to kill him. He needs to be alive.'

'So he can suffer?'

'That depends in whether anybody dies.'

'The best physicians in the world are working to save them,' Gabe says. 'Laura will pull through. People have survived worse than Bucky. And Monty's stubborn. Heather'd die before she let him slack off his fatherly duties. You know she's pregnant again? Laura told me just before Barton showed up.'

'Gabe,' Jacques says, a stern warning.

He clamps his mouth shut and they continue down the path in grim silence.

'I wonder who they'll make the godparents this time. Laura, obviously, but who else?'

'Dugan,' Steve barks, and he pipes shut too.

The scorch marks are steaming now, burning hot and they feel it against their faces as they approach. Drawing their swords and Natasha clutching a kitchen knife of dubious origin, they all shift their weight, ready to fight, and approach the smouldering pit Barton is lying prone in. He’s naked and bloody, brown with the dirt sticking to the wetness of his blood, and he steams with the heat of his curse.

‘Captain,’ Dugan says, and Steve takes a breath, steps down into the pit.

He is Blessed, after all. A dragon wouldn’t kill him. He has good magic to counter the evil of Clint’s Curse. He can survive what the others cannot. Months after the Blessing had settled against his bones, he threw himself off one of the bell towers, just to see what would happen. Bucky had been insistent that he wouldn’t survive, like he really wanted to believe he would, and knowing Steve so well, he knew without a doubt that Steve would take it as a challenge.

He’d broken his ankle, and dislocated the wrist, elbow and shoulder in his right arm landing on it, but he’d survived, and he’d hobbled back to Bucky at the top of the tower, howling about his victory. And the pain. But mostly the victory.

Steve grips his sword tight and gets close enough to crouch next to Barton’s head, watching him lie there and waiting.

‘Anything?’ Gabe asks.

‘Nothing,’ Steve replies, and shifts to sheath his sword again. ‘Weapons down, he isn’t going anywhere.’

‘He has a Curse,’ Natasha reminds him, ‘just because he’s unconscious doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous. And he’ll know what he did. He’ll remember it. Believe me, he’ll remember what he did, and the grief will hurt him more than anything we could do to him.’

‘Then we won’t tell him different,’ Steve says, and grabs Barton’s wrist, starts dragging him towards the edge of the pit and up onto the scorched trail. ‘If he asks, we’ll tell him that Laura is dead. He doesn’t need to know.’

 Natasha has that look on her face that she gets when Laura is being particularly obtuse. Steve ignores it and keeps dragging Barton’s limp body back towards the castle.

The others follow behind, scuffing their toes and glancing about.

‘So much for a ball,’ Gabe says after a few minutes of walking in utter silence. ‘I was looking forward to Stark’s firework show.’

‘If Laura pulls through, I’m sure he’ll put it on in celebration,’ Dugan says, ‘you know he uses any excuse for a party.’

‘But never attends them,’ Gabe counters. ‘He’s weird. He’s actually, genuinely _weird._ The “makes your hair stand up” breed of weird.’

‘You barely have any hair to stand up.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

But Dugan just laughs a mirthless sort of laugh. There’s nothing really to laugh about, but they all know why he’s laughing – if he doesn’t, he’ll just start crying.

The castle has stopped screaming, but starts up as soon as Steve drags Barton through the courtyard, towards the dungeon staircase.

‘Sort them out,’ Steve says, ‘they’re giving me a fucking headache.’

‘Language,’ Natasha sing-songs, because Steve chides everyone and their mother about their language when in public, and yet, behind closed doors, swears worse than most sailors.

He gives her a filthy look, but doesn’t fight her on it, and just continues to drag Barton down the stairs to throw him into a cell. The other prisoners, a few of them the same as when the hunter was first dragged into a cell, recognise him, and holler about treatment.

It amounts to something, he thinks, that the prisoners are so used to fair treatment that they make a racket over a man convicted of regicide. They don't have to know Laura is still alive.

As soon as he's sure Barton is secure in his cell, bound by iron chains at the wrists and ankles and left in the bloody, grazed heap he’d been dropped in, Steve goes back to the infirmary, taking the stairs three at a time in his haste. There is still screaming in the castle, but only from one or two of the more hysterical Ladies. Most of the castle is deathly silent. They’re all too shaken by Barton’s screeching still, by the sight of the Princess as Steve carried her through the ballroom to the staircase. Everyone is either heading home, or sitting in silence on the floor or in chairs, pale and shivering, tea clutched in their hands. He’ll thank Miss Martinelli later, because she’s keeping a cool head about this, and he’s glad someone is.

The door is shut, and firmly shut against him when he tries to barge in.

‘Steve,’ Peggy says, from across the hall, ‘let them work in peace. They’ll let you in when they’re ready.’

It’s dawn before they let him back in. He’d dozed off in one of the balistraria, one leg up at his chest and the other dangling out of the hole in the wall, because he’s bigger than most of the archers the arrowslit was designed for, and he’s uncomfortable. But he’s dozing, and Sam is reluctant to wake him. But Erskine had insisted that Steve be allowed back into the infirmary, and Sam isn’t in a position to argue with him. The man had just saved three lives and made the rest of them look like dunces. So Sam wakes him, and Steve cracks his head against the stone when he jerks upright.

‘Fuck,’ he says, and lets Sam tug him out of the hole and back to standing.

'How is she?' he asks, even though he goes straight to Bucky, sat with Doctor Erskine, who is tidying up the end of his arm.

Sam returns to cleaning up the infirmary around the rest of them, throwing bloodied tools into one bowl, and sodden linens into another, ready to be taken to the laundry room to be scrubbed and bleached and most likely thrown. The room stinks of iron, of blood and piss and vomit, and Steve is too caught up in the feel of Bucky’s sweaty hair under his fingertips to protest.

'She will live,' Erskine says, 'I have petitioned her Godmother to put her under an enchanted sleep while she heals, to ensure she does not suffer while her body heals.'

'Can we move her?' Steve asks, moving to stand so that Bucky can rest his temple on Steve's hip.

'I don't see why not,' Erskine says. 'As long as she is moved carefully, and not jostled, I see no worry in it.'

'I have Barton in the dungeon.'

It comes out of him without warning, and he swallows thickly, but doesn't retract it.

'You want her out in case of trouble?' Erskine says.

Steve hums. 'We can rebuild the castle, and she doesn't need it to rule. She can rule from anywhere in the kingdom. But we can't lose another House to dragons.'

Bucky hums, and then hisses through his teeth. 'Anaesthetic is wearing off, Doc. What if we put her in with Monty? He's going to be out of action for a few months while he gets over this. But if we send Natasha with her, she'll be safe there.'

'Fury will want her here,' Steve says. 'He's already got her tracking down the hag from the gifting.'

'Then - we'll give her Gabe and Dugan. They'll be enough. No one besides us has to know she's there.'

Erskine nods. 'I can visit her at the same time as the Major,' he says. 'No one will be any the wiser. And I hear Lady Falsworth is pregnant again. I can visit for her, too.'

Steve looks at Laura, dressed in one of her sprigged muslin dresses, the first the boys grabbed most likely, looking dead still, with her hands folded over her belly as though the table is an open casket, fit for viewing. She breathes, but barely. She's pale, sickly in the dawn light, looking thin and empty and totally devoid of anything resembling life. Her eyelids are black and her lips blue, and her hair is cleaner, but wet still, limp against her scalp.

'Why is she still here?' Steve asks. 'Why haven't we got her out of the infirmary?'

‘I am waiting for her room to be readied,’ Erskine says, ‘Lady Falsworth insisted on having it prepared for the Princess to stay in for an extended period.’

Steve almost pulls a face, but breathes instead. This is Heather’s way of handling what happened, of handling almost losing her husband and her Princess in less than ten minutes and having to wait most of the night to be sure they were alive and well. Bucky’s lost an arm, but Monty could have lost his life.

‘Where is Monty?’ he asks, glances around. The infirmary is empty now, apart from the three of them.

‘Gone back to the Guard’s Room,’ Bucky says, ‘he’s getting his shit together, gonna head home as soon as he’s ready.’

‘I’ll arrange to have Laura taken with him,’ Steve says, ‘we’ll disguise her. No one will have to know.’

‘I’ll have to know,’ Peggy says, from the doorway, and Steve leaps a mile, almost yanking Bucky out of his chair by the hand he’s got tangled in the Sergeant’s hair. ‘As I’ve put her under an enchanted sleep, I’ll have to know where she is to bring her out of it again.’

‘No True Love’s Kiss?’ Bucky quips, and Peggy sniffs.

‘Not all enchantments end with a kiss,’ she tells him, ‘only most of them. I can undo a sleep enchantment with my eyes shut, especially not one designed as punishment. If we’re to move her to Major Falsworth’s estate, I’ll have to set up an illusion here of her under the enchanted sleep.’

Steve frowns at Laura’s still body. She’s still barely breathing.

 ‘So no one knows,’ he says, and Peggy nods.

‘They can continue to care for her as if it’s her real body,’ she says, and crosses the room on silent, bare feet to touch Laura’s hair, stroking her fingers against it, and the heat of her body steams the residual water out of her locks. ‘But she will need to be cared for at the Major’s estate. I cannot spare the time to care for her – there’s been – I need to speak to the Fair Council about what’s happening here. What’s _been_ happening.’

‘I need to speak to Commander Fury,’ Steve says after a moment’s passed. ‘We need to – we need to repair the wall, and work out what to say. We have to – I don’t know anymore, Peg, I don’t know what to do.’

Peggy reaches for him, and Steve tugs Bucky’s hair one last time before crossing to take her hand.

‘We’ll walk,’ she says, ‘and talk. And we’ll work out what to do. You’re not alone, darling, don’t fret. We’re here.’

Steve sighs, and clutches her hand like the boy he’d been all those years ago, dying of his sickness and trusting her because Laura trusted her. He casts one last look at the Princess, colourless and motionless, a marble statue of herself, and follows Peggy out of the room.

* * *

 

When Clint wakes, he’s naked and alone. It’s only when he rolls over, turning away from the wall that he realises he is both chained to said wall and that said wall forms part of a cell. How they thought, whoever they happened to be, that he will be held by iron chains, he’s not sure, but held he is. For the moment anyway.

It’s only as he stretches out as much as the chains allow that he realises he is completely naked. Not just lacking clothes naked but missing Laura’s accessories naked. He could live without her pendant, because Laura had lost enough of them that he’d surely stumble across another, but her ribbon! Her ribbon had been - it had been - it meant so much.

He yanks on his chains, snarls at the faint pressure of her mouth on his. It doesn’t take long before the snarl becomes a howl, a wretched screech of a noise that comes from too deep in his chest to be entirely human. It echoes around the cells back to him, warped and faded, a much-abused shirt.

Clint curls into a ball and starts to sob.

Captain Rogers finds him like that a few minutes later. The front of his shirt and his open pelisse are rust red with Laura’s blood, and Clint knows it’s Laura’s blood. It smells of the honey and vanilla of her skin and the iron of the pulse in her neck.

‘Barton,’ Rogers says, arms folded across his chest. 'A name as cursed as the man himself. We’d thought you mad, you know. We thought you’d eked out a half-life in the woods because you weren’t suited to anything else. But now.’

'Now you know,’ Clint breathes, but in the agonising, terrifying silence of the cells, it echoes, rattles back to him like his bones are trembling, shattering into a thousand pieces before piecing themselves back together in all the wrong ways.

Captain Rogers doesn’t say a word, just stands there in his bloody pelisse with his haggard face expressionless, and Clint yanks at the chains, tries to get further away from the Blessed man.

‘Is she dead?’ he asks eventually, when the silence becomes too much. ‘Did I kill her?’

There isn’t so much as a breath out of Rogers’ mouth, and Clint waits. He waits and he waits, and there is still no reply.

‘Is she dead?’ he repeats, louder, harder, staggering to his feet and rushing to the bars as fast as his aching ankle will take him. Closer to shouting, he demands, ‘ _is she dead_?’

Captain Rogers still says not a single word, and Clint feels the dreadful knowledge knot in his belly, twist it in a thousand ways before finally snapping into tiny, _tiny_ shards. Each one pierces him like a knife, and he chokes on his breath.

‘Fucking hell,’ he says. ‘Fucking _Christ._ Rogers, I – I – I didn’t mean to hurt her. I didn’t mean for any of it. I just – there was this _noise_ , like screaming, but it was behind my eyes, not in my ears, and it wouldn’t stop. Like there was something clawing at the back of my face, and it kept going and going and eventually it – it stopped. It stopped, and Laura was there – she was _there_. She was looking at me, Rogers, she was looking at me and she said – she said – ‘

Rogers stands straighter, his eyes flaring blue like fire, warm like Peggy’s fingertips but so hard.

‘What did she say?’

‘She said – she told me – she said that she loved me. And I – I don’t remember what happened next. I woke up here, just now. I don’t remember – what happened? That’s her blood. Was it me? Did I do it?’

Rogers does not look thrilled to say it, but he opens his mouth anyway.

‘Clint Barton, you have been tried and found guilty of regicide, a crime punishable by death. Your sentence is to be carried out after the mourning period has ended.’

For half a second, there is silence in the dungeon, and then the roaring starts. Clint had thought himself alone, with the silence that had greeted him on waking, on coming to, and he’d not heard a single breath or heartbeat from one of them. But for all the dozen prisoners are criminals, for all they have committed crimes against the kingdom, not one of them is an attempted assassin, not one of them has done wrong by the Princess. They adore her, for all they talked of her as if she was meat, as if she was a common whore from the streets of Lower Town. The bones of her are carried in those men’s hearts, and the news that she’s dead – that her _murderer_ is not ten feet away from them, bound in chains to the wall, and only just barely out of their reach -

They’d kill him themselves, Clint knows. If they could get within arm’s reach, they’d rip his guts out through his mouth. They wouldn’t give him a chance.

Clint takes a breath, swallows past the knot in his throat.

‘I understand,’ he says. ‘How long – how long is the mourning period?’

‘For Princesses, six weeks. For Laura? York will mourn for years. Some Ladies will never wear colour again.’

The prisoners are still hollering and screeching, but Captain Rogers seems unaware of them, and Clint does his best to tune them out. It’s the only way he can think. He has to be able to think.

All he can see is the honey gold of Laura’s eyes, the crease at her lashline when she smiled. His nose is full of her blood, the iron and vanilla stink of her pulse right under his nose. He sits – falls, more like – and stays there, staring at nothing.

‘You will be treated as fairly as the other prisoners,’ Rogers says. ‘You’ll have clothes brought to you presently, and you’ll be fed at the same time as the rest.’

Clint manages a nod, which is really little more than a dip of his head, and he breathes. Rogers lingers for a few minutes more, and then turns on his heel and leaves him to the whispers and howled insults of the prisoners. It washes over him, for the most part. He has been called worse than a Queen Killer.

He didn’t kill a queen, that’s the problem. He killed a Princess, and not just any Princess. Oh no, Clint Barton can’t do things by halves, Jesus Christ no. Have to fuck it up from here to Tsaristyn and back, don’t you, Clint? Have to make it as bad as possible for yourself, don’t you?

Fucking idiot.

‘That’s enough,’ he says, when the hollering starts to blister behind his eyes. ‘I get it. I understand. I’m going to die soon. You’ll have your justice then. You can watch me hang all you like when the mourning’s done.’

‘You’ll be lucky if we don’t kill you first.’

‘Why do me the favour?’ Clint replies, and crawls back into the corner nearest his chains, pushing his eyes into his knees and pretending like they aren’t wet.

* * *

Monty is ready to leave not long after lunchtime has been and gone, a sombre, silent affair of cold cuts and last night’s bread. Nobody says a word, and nobody really eats. The King is nowhere to be seen, and the Crown Prince can be heard yelling in the gardens, but no one’s there to really listen to him.

It takes some doing to get the Major dressed and on his feet. His injuries are extensive, to say the least, and he can’t walk alone, that much is readily apparent, so it takes twice as long as it should to get him down to the stables and to the carriage he’d sent for to take him and Heather home. They’d spoken, as soon as Steve had returned from the dungeons to investigate the screeching that sounded so like the screeching the night before, about the Falsworths taking Laura with them, about hiding her away to recover safely at their estate.

‘I don’t see why not,’ Monty had said, nodding to himself as Heather did her best to help lace him into his shoes. ‘I mean – it’s – I want her home with us.’

Dugan carries her to the carriage under a shroud. Nobody questions it, because nobody is in the courtyard to see them. If anyone sees the strongman carrying an oddly-shaped, covered object in his arms, they don’t mention it to anybody, because when Steve returns to the castle after seeing them off, he doesn’t hear a breath of a word about it.

But for now, as things stand, he’s leading the party towards the carriage.

‘Are you sure you’re going to be protected enough?’ he asks, ‘I can come with you, if you need me to.’

‘You need to stay here,’ Monty says, and eases himself up the steps into the carriage, although he’ll readily admit Steve mostly lifts him into it, what with the broken ankle and the sprained ankle and the broken thigh bone. ‘You’re needed here. If more of us go, we’re going to arouse suspicion. As far as anybody knows, she’s still here. She needs protecting if she’s here.’

Steve scowls, but he scowls a lot these days.

‘Alright,’ he says, ‘alright, if you’re sure. I don’t like it.’

‘You don’t have to like it, son,’ Monty says, ‘you just have to do it. Follow my orders for once; I do outrank you, you know.’

‘I know,’ Steve sighs. ‘I know.’

Once Monty’s settled in the carriage, Dugan eases Laura in next to him, and Monty sniffs. Dugan steps away from the door and climbs up onto the seat next to Gabe, taking up the reins in readiness to move on. The horses are nervous, unsure about the carriage they’re pulling. It’s black and nondescript and bought from the Queen’s Village market like all standard carriages are, and it could be any on the road. They’re so used to the royal carriage that they almost don’t know what to do with themselves.

‘Can I take the shroud off?’ Monty asks, as Heather climbs in and tucks all their skirts and coats and shrouds away neatly, so they all fit comfortably together, ‘I feel like I’m sitting next to the corpse of my cousin, not my sleeping one.’

‘Not yet,’ Steve says, and his fingers hesitate, as if about to reach out to touch the Princess, before he steps away to pull the steps in. ‘When you’re out on the road and you’re safe, yes. Get away from the castle first.’

Monty nods, and Steve shuts them in, banging his fist on the side of the carriage as he backs away.

‘Keep them safe,’ he calls up to Dugan, and the Sergeant nods, snaps the reins and leads them on their way.

Steve waits until the gates are shut behind the carriage, and then he turns back to the castle, taking a deep breath. The Princess is asleep in her bed. As far as anyone is concerned, the Princess is right where they left her. Peggy is in the kitchen, he’s sure, making up for lost time with Miss Martinelli, and he won’t disturb her until tomorrow with his concerns, if she’s even still here to be disturbed by the time tomorrow comes.

Bucky is out of the infirmary and wobbling down a corridor when Steve arrives.

‘Whoa, whoa,’ he says, and rushes to catch Bucky before he falls. ‘Slow down, you shouldn’t be walking.’

‘My legs are fine,’ Bucky huffs, but leans against Steve anyway. ‘They’re fine. I can walk. It’s not my legs that are the problem. It’s my fucking arm. It’s gone, Stevie, it’s fucking gone.’

‘I know,’ Steve replies, honest. ‘I know. I can see. We’ll – we’ll – I’ll talk to Stark in the morning, see what he can do.’

‘He can fix the toilet in our bathroom,’ Bucky says, ‘he can’t fix my arm.’

‘He can make you a new one. And we have people to fix the toilet.’

 Bucky makes a noise like little Thomas Falsworth makes, on the rare occasions Monty will dare let his son near the boys, and he doesn’t like what he sees, too used to the pastel wonderment of his home manor. It’s not the sort of noise Bucky would ever normally make, always taking himself far too seriously, despite the easy grin on his face and the quickness of his tongue in the battle of wits.

‘Don’t be rude,’ Steve chides, and ducks a little to sweep Bucky up and into his arms like a bride.

It’s the same way he carried Laura when he brought her home. It’s the same way Dugan carried her out, several hours later. It’s painful. It hurts, and Steve swallows thickly.

‘Is she safe?’ Bucky asks, evidently reading Steve’s mind. ‘Tell me she’s safe.’

‘She’s as safe as I can make her,’ he says, ‘the kingdom believes her dead for now. The castle believes her to be in an enchanted sleep in her bed, ready to be woken by True Love’s Kiss.’

‘Her True Love is in the dungeon,’ Bucky grunts, ‘where he can fucking rot.’

‘We’ll deal with him on the morrow,’ Steve says, ‘when things are calmer.’

Bucky opens the door the Queen’s Guard’s barracks when they reach it, and Steve sets him down on their bunk. Really, it’s Steve’s bunk, but Bucky so rarely sleeps in his own that it’s beginning to gather dust. Half the time, Steve will tell him to go to his own bed, only to wake tangled in the Sergeant’s limbs, with a mouth full of his hair, and he gives up, every now and then, and just lets him do what he will. There’s no stopping him, it seems like, and he could fight the tide better.

Hours pass, and they’re still lay there staring at the ceiling.

‘What are we going to do?’ Bucky asks, and Steve almost reaches for his hand before remembering that there isn’t one there any longer.

‘I don’t know,’ Steve replies.

‘He’s – if he’s _really_ her True Love – ‘

‘If he were her True Love, he wouldn’t have gutted her like a fish,’ Steve bites, and Bucky kicks him. ‘Don’t kick me, Buck, you know it’s true. You _know_ that it’s true. We watched him cut straight through her like she was paper, and what could we do about it? Fucking nothing. We just stood there gaping like fish, because we thought – we thought – we didn’t think. We just let her carry on with him like he was any man off the street, any potential suitor. He’s fucking _cursed_ , Buck. He’s cursed and we let him – Gods above, what if she’d been – ‘

‘What if she’d been what?’ Bucky asks, but he says it like he knows, like he’s mad at Steve for suggesting it. ‘With child? You think she’s _stupid_ enough to lay with him? God knows she wanted to, you only had to look at her to know she wanted to, but she wasn’t stupid enough to get that close to him. Ross couldn’t get that close to Banner when he was Cursed; Laura wouldn’t be an exception to the rule.’

‘He said she told him that she loved him,’ Steve says, after a stagnant pause. ‘That that was what she whispered to him, that we didn’t hear, that made him attack her.’

‘The Curse?’ Bucky asks. ‘Do you think she tried to break it?’

‘Then he’s not her True Love,’ Steve returns, ‘if she didn’t break it, it wasn’t True Love.’

‘Maybe she doesn’t love him Truly yet,’ Bucky murmurs, ‘’cause maybe that’s how it works. Maybe she’s gotta love him properly. You can’t break a Curse just loving the idea of someone.’

Steve snorts. ‘She isn’t going to love him now, though, is she? If she ever wakes up, she isn’t going to love him Truly. He just tried to kill her. He just _succeeded_ in killing her.’

‘Laura’d take that as a challenge,’ Bucky shrugs.

Steve supposes she would.

‘I’ll talk to Stark in the morning,’ he says, instead of continuing that thread of conversation. ‘We’ll work something out with your arm.’

Bucky shrugs. ‘I can probably live without it,’ he says.

(It’s three in the morning when Steve wakes to find Bucky thrashing and screaming and clawing at the stump of his arm, all of the stitches ripped free and blood soaking the sheets.

‘I want to die,’ Bucky tells him, when Steve bats his hand away and balls the sheets against the wound. ‘Just let me die. I’m useless like this, I can’t even piss right like this.’

Steve doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything at all.)

* * *

 

Dugan hasn’t been to the Falsworth estate for months – years, even. He came to help them build the crib, because Monty was losing his mind over it, and Heather’s Pa was no help, too busy laughing at his son-in-law to be of much use. It couldn’t be that hard to build a crib, surely. It’s not like you couldn’t just buy the thing ready-made and all set to go with its blankets and the likes. It cost you a pretty penny, but Monty was royalty, and a Major to boot, and his salary alone was enough to afford a few shortcuts in life.

But no, Monty had decided he was going to build the crib, and so build the crib he did. Even if he had to get Dugan to help.

‘You did not do all the work,’ Monty will say whenever Dugan brings it up. ‘Stop lying, your nose is ugly enough.’

It’s a grey early evening when they arrive, bleak from horizon to horizon, and even the pastel warmth of the stone and painted arches isn’t inviting as it usually is. From beside him, Gabe huffs, and Dugan feels it in his bones.

The ride was long, and there was something following them for a time, Dugan was sure, something cold and dark and angry, and he’d been tempted to snap the reins, but he’d stopped himself, forced himself to ride steady. Monty had dozed off in the carriage, and whenever the horses were quiet, he could just about hear the Major snoring. It isn’t like Monty to snore, but Dugan supposes he’s in too much pain. Everything hurts, no doubt. Sam, after they’d gotten Laura breathing steady and the bleeding stopped, had looked him over, and Dugan can’t remember half the injuries he’d named.

Internal bleeding had been mentioned, but Sam had managed to put a stop to all that nonsense. They said something, all the doctors, about how Monty was lucky to be alive, but it was a different sort of luck to Laura’s continued living. They said to keep an eye on him; over the next few days, so Sam had said, there was a chance Monty might start coughing up blood, and to send for them straight away if he did. Dugan’s told Monty that under no circumstances is he to do something as stupid as cough up blood. Monty’s done his best to promise he won’t, but Monty’s a fucking liar.

‘Christ,’ he groans, and climbs down to go to the gatehouse so the guards will let them in.

‘Dugan!’ the guard crows, and claps his hands.

‘Pinky, my boy,’ Dugan replies, ‘long time no see. How’s retirement treating you?’

‘With a three-course meal,’ Pinky replies, and his smile sobers in a second. ‘How is he? We’ve all heard about the ball, about what happened. We could hear the screech from here.’

‘He’s alive,’ Dugan says, ‘Doc says it’s going to be months before he’s back to normal. I give it a month before he’s back on his horse.’

‘A month? A fortnight, more like,’ Pinky snorts. ‘Alright, Dum Dum, get back to the carriage, I’ll get the gate open.’

As Dugan lumbers his way back to the carriage, Monty sticks his head out of the window.

‘Was that Pinky?’ he slurs, eyes still sleep-heavy.

‘Mm,’ Dugan says, ‘stay awake. I’m not carrying you up the stairs too.’

‘I’ll carry her,’ Gabe says with a grin and a nudge of his elbow. ‘You carry him.’

‘I’ll do no such thing,’ Dugan sniffs, and nudges the horses into a walk through the gate onto the Falsworth estate.

* * *

 

It must have been a month, Clint thinks, since the – since the ball, but it’s impossible to tell the time; they’re left in darkness for the better part, with no natural light and sparse candlelight coming from the sconces along the wall. There’s no routine to the guards’ visits, or at least, not one that Clint can work out. Some days they’ll have more food than they can bear to eat, and then others they won’t see hide nor hair of the guards until they’re cramping with hunger. It could be a week, it could be two or three or twelve months. Clint has no idea. Captain Rogers hasn’t been back since that last visit, sending everybody else to see him instead. Clint’s – he’s fine with that. It has to be how it is.

The other prisoners have been howling and screeching since Clint’s crime was first announced, and he hasn’t made friends of them yet, but he hasn’t particularly been trying to. He sleeps where he can, and stares at nothing where he can’t, glaring at the wall and hoping for death to claim him. Perhaps Captain Rogers will have his food poisoned, perhaps the thirst will claim him. He’s not so foolish as to believe he’d be allowed to die in his sleep, unless someone happened to cut his head off while he slumbered. Even then, the dragon would probably shove his head back on just to spite him.

He hasn’t been imprisoned for over a century, and the last time he was captured, Wade came to release him. He has no doubt Wade is perfectly aware of what’s been happening, but he’s shown no signs of visiting him, of sneaking in to break him out the way Laura -

Laura –

She’d broken him out of the dungeons. She’d do it again, too, he’s sure. Or, she would, if she were around to do such a thing.

'Would you look at that. History repeating itself, like it never learns. But I suppose it wouldn't. How could it learn? Look at it.'

Clint opens his eyes, stares straight ahead. In the pitch blackness of the dungeon, there isn’t much to look at, but he looks at it anyway.

'But that was always the problem. Always thinking with its heart and not its head. Such a heart it has, too.'

'Fuck off,' Clint breathes, and rolls over, almost throttles himself with the chains.

'Now that's not very polite. Imagine if you were polite! What a novelty that would be! I'd almost think you human.'

Clint ducks his head under his arm and tries to tune _him_ out. It doesn't too well because then he's _there_ , in the cell with _him_ , and Clint has nowhere to go except up. Up to standing, to fists clenched, chin raised, silent confrontational standing. It's not unlike the last time he encountered _him_ , back in the cottage a lifetime ago. He's still naked, because Rogers had that pig guard take his clothes again, for something Clint had or hadn't done. It's the lack of a complaint, Clint reasons. He's accepting everything they're doing and not doing, everything they're giving and everything they're taking, and it's driving them mad. He wants to die, he's told them that.

Laura is dead. She's dead and killed by his stinking hand. Why wouldn't he want to die after that? She isn't - she wasn't the Laura he'd loved centuries ago, but he loved her all the same, and it burns to his core to see her gone.

And it's thrown them all for a loop. Barnes came to see him, a lifetime ago, carrying a candle that made him haggard and ghostly. He has a steel arm now, a prosthetic strapped to the stump Clint had given him, and he had told him that they didn't know what to do.

'You killed Laura,' Barnes had said, sitting in front of the bars, and Clint had sat opposite him, like they were civilised men and not animals. 'And by law, you have to be executed. You were tried before we'd even left the castle to come find you. It's - Barton. You want to die?'

'I'd like nothing more,' Clint had said with a shake of his head. 'Three hundred years is a long time to be alone. And I could have had - she could have broken the Cur – the – you know – if she'd only waited a little longer before trying.'

'You're blaming her for you murdering her?’ Barnes snarled, looking like he wanted nothing more than to lunge through the bars to grab Clint by his non-existent collar and smash his face into the bars. Clint thought, and still thinks, that he would have been grateful if Barnes had done so.

'No. I'm saying I promised to learn to control it around her, and I killed her because I broke that promise.'

'Killing you would do you a favour.'

'And the rest of the kingdoms. The girls - I'm the last of them Cur – made like this. Everyone else is dead, and turning men into monsters is considered barbaric now. The Fair Council won't sanction curses that risk innocent lives. I'm the last of my kind.'

'You're the last dragon too,' Barnes had mused, quiet and contemplative.

'There were others,' Clint had explained, quiet and staring at nothing. The other prisoners had been asleep, the way most of them slept through the constant night. 'But Miss Romanov's girls from Tsaritsyn are very good at their jobs.'

'Tsaritsyn? Nat? What about her? What does she do?'

'You don't know,' Clint had laughed, the wretched sound ripping free of him at the confusion on Barnes' face. 'You don't know! She's one of the girls from the Red Room. They're dragon killers, Sergeant. She was sent to kill me. That's why she turned up overnight as Laura's best friend, why that Commander Fury of yours didn't question her.'

'I wasn't here when she arrived,' Bucky had admitted. 'I'd gone away for a week, with Steve, to see if different air might do his lungs some good. This was before his Blessing, you understand.'

Clint had rubbed a hand down his face, still laughing, and he rubs a hand down his face now, chuckling under his breath.

‘I’m _so_ glad you find it funny,’ _he_ says, ‘after all, you’ll be dead soon.’

‘Yes, I will,’ Clint agrees. ‘And free of you at last.’

‘Goodness no,’ _he_ laughs. ‘No, no, no! You won’t _ever_ be free of me, horse-boy. You won’t _ever_ be free of me. If you die, I have all that’s left of you, did you forget? I get to collect on that little bargain your darling father-in-law made.’

‘He made no such bargain,’ Clint argues, because Clint has no choice but to argue it now.

Standing toe-to-toe with the – the – whatever _he_ is – is not the best idea. Clint’s had better. He’ll have better later, too, when all is said and done. Undoubtedly, he’ll have worse too.

‘Did he not? Strange, isn’t it, to be held in so little regard that not even your ashes are cared for. That not even your ashes get a burial, and get handed to me instead.’

‘You say that as if you’re getting my ashes.’

‘You say that as if I’m not.’

‘If I die, there won’t _be_ ashes for you to take,’ Clint snorts, and turns away, turns his back on his curser.

‘Oh, Clint,’ _he_ sighs, and Clint snarls at the sound of his name on that wretched black tongue. ‘You have no clue, do you? I swore to never let you be free of my curse, to never have your freedom again. And I’ll make good on that promise, no matter what it takes.’

Clint hesitates, and then turns back, frown etched between his eyes.

‘You,’ he says, ‘that – what happened wasn’t my fault. You were – you were involved.’

‘I cursed you, you imbecile, of course I was involved.’

Clint heaves a breath that’s not quite a sigh, but it’s not merely an exhale.

‘Now you’re being pedantic,’ he says, and then, before _he_ can open _his_ mouth, Clint adds, ‘yes, yes, it’s a big word for me, I know. It’s a shock to the very bones, I’m sure. You know damn well that I meant you were involved beyond this situation existing because of your involvement. You know that.’

‘Well, yes,’ _he_ agrees. ‘But causing you grief is such fun, and it’s so _easy_ to do! You always take everything so literally. You’re so _serious_ , horse-boy.’

‘Is it any wonder,’ Clint asks, but it’s not really a question. ‘Why are you here? Surely not to mock me? What a waste of your precious time. Just let me suffer in silence, it’s more effective.’

 _He_ looks taken aback, and Clint waits, patient. The other prisoners are stirring at the sound of a conversation, and Clint wonders if they can see the other person in his cell – although – person is a bit generous, as nouns go.

Person implies some humanity, and Clint is sure there’s nothing _he’d_ hate more than to be accused of being even a little bit human.

‘Oh! I came to break you out of this dungeon. You see, you will be so much more effective running rampant out there, in the woods and in Lower Town and that little village the girl liked so much, what’s it called? The King’s Town?’

‘Queen’s Village,’ Clint replies, before he can stop himself.

‘Queen’s Village, that’s right! There are all sorts of shops there. She liked that one tailor the best, didn’t she? Back when she was still alive, anyway.’

Clint takes a breath, remembers how lovely Laura had looked in her gown, the purple silk and beaded embroidery so perfectly tailored to her form, sparkling with the light from the ballroom, and he shudders.

‘I’m,’ he starts, and then stops.

Why would he bother trying to protect the castle, the kingdom? The only one that mattered, the only girl that mattered an iota to him, she was dead. The one person worth protecting, she’d died by his hand. There was no point in pretending like he could protect anything now. His resolve was gone. He’d lived in the woods to avoid killing more girls, to avoid having to face down angry fathers and husbands and brothers, to avoid decimating towns. He’d wanted to do right by the kingdom, to not inflict himself and his Curse on them, because they were innocent, and deserved better.

But why bother?

Humans fucked just as much as rabbits. There would always be more humans. And if they could kill him out of revenge-fuelled rage, even better. He’d be dead and gone and there’d be no more. No more dragons, no more monsters, no more Curses to endanger life floating around.

 It’d be best for everyone if he died.

Barton was a name as cursed as the man himself, and it was for the best that they both died as soon as possible. Three hundred years was a long time to be alive, to be alone. He’d said that to Barnes, and Barnes had looked at him like he was a particularly adorable incontinent puppy, and there’s nothing worse than _pity_.

‘Just go,’ Clint sighs. ‘Just fuck off. Let them kill me. You’re determined to have my ashes either way, why waste the effort?’

The monster just shakes his head, and sighs.

‘Oh, Clint, you disappoint me. You disappoint me so, so much. I expected so much better of you!’

‘You did, did you.’

‘Yes! I rather thought you were going to put up a fight. Scream and shout and stamp your feet the way you did last time we were here.’

‘We’ve never been here before.’

‘That is called being a pedant,’ the monster chides, as though he’s teasing. ‘No, no, I thought you’d be very cross indeed, and yet here you are, calm as anything.’

Clint opens his mouth, tries to say the monster’s name but chokes on his tongue instead. The monster laughs, and pats the hunter’s hair.

‘You can’t do that,’ he says, as though schooling a child, ‘it simply isn’t done. Now, hold still, _Clint_ , I’m going to make sure you do as you’re told. It was always your problem. Never doing as you were bid. Even when you were just a man, you never behaved. Your brother told me all about it.’

Clint snarls, and tries to lunge forward, but is stymied by his chains.

Not that it matters, because that sceptre is in the monster’s hand again, and Clint’s heart stops, picks up thrice as fast.

‘No,’ he says, ‘no, no you can’t. You’ve done enough! You did enough!’

The cell is ice and fire and nothing at all, and Clint can’t scramble away, tripping over his feet and the chains and falling against the wall, where he is then pinned, held firm by the point of the sceptre against his heart, digging deep enough to draw blood.

He hasn’t seen the sceptre since that night, since the night he was cursed, Laura Faulkner’s body cold and not long from his arms, the monster a vision of ice and blue and red eyes barely inches from his own, seeking out his soul to make it suffer the penance of his crime.

‘You’ve done enough,’ he repeats, softer, weaker. There isn’t an argument.

‘Don’t you understand?’ the monster asks, leaning in to stare at him, red eyes and horns and tongue as black as pitch. ‘You don’t _get_ your happy ending! Why would you deserve something like that? You’re _nothing_. You were always nothing, and you’ll die as nothing, if they can catch you.’

One second, Clint is there, conscious of himself, conscious of his limbs and his mind and his heart, beating too hard in his chest.

The next, he is not.

* * *

 

News of the Princess’s survival spreads in tandem with news of her death, and Wade sits in Josie’s tavern, drumming his fingers against his tankard to drown out the rattle of the singing – caterwauling, really – of the drunkards on the other side of the room. His eyes are shut, and he’s listening to something further away, something on the other side of the woods, desperate and pleading, and he takes a breath.

The girl’s alive, then – alive, and at her cousin’s estate, where she’ll be safe and out of the way. No one will be able to find her there, because only a handful of people know she’s there, and Falsworth cross-checks his staff with as many people as he has on the grounds in the first place. Everyone is vetoed before they set _foot_ on that estate. Wade knows. He’s tried to go through the gates before now, tried to walk to the front door, and been turned away for not passing some easily-tricked test or another. He could fake paperwork until the forest was dead, but what would be the point?

Jumping the wall isn’t hard when your bones don’t break.

So the Princess is alive. That’s good. That’s what he wants to hear, to know. That’s fine. He could work with her dead, too, but this makes it easier.

He’ll have to jump the wall; he needs to talk to her, and he needs to talk to her before Barton reaches her.

Not that Barton though, God no. That Barton is – is –

Where is old buddy, old pal? Where’s he gotten to? Wade stops thinking for a moment, and just _listens_. It takes him a few minutes to track Clint down, because tracking him in the wrong form is always going to slow you down, and Wade’s trying to find him as a man.

He’s not a man right now.

But he’s not a dragon either, so that’s good. He’s somewhere between, crashing about the woods, howling and screeching and barely avoiding setting fire to everything. Wade could do without the woods burning down right now. He’s clearly not in his right mind, Clint, Wade means; he’s thrashing like a cornered beast, lashing out at everything in touching distance. If the castle hears him – if the Queen’s Guard hears him – Captain Rogers – for the sake of all that could possibly be considered holy, if they catch him, the whole bloody lot will go up in smoke. Rogers will try to kill him, and probably get killed in the process, and Wade turns his attention for half a second to the castle, to the alarm bells and the yelling.

The dungeons are on fire, the walls blown out with the force of the rage that had swelled in Clint’s chest and burst out with the horns and the wings and the scales, forced from him by that fucking _idiot_ of an Old One. Jesus fucking Christ.

The Queen’s Guard are rushing around the woods like blind children, determined to find Clint before Clint finds them, but they don’t stand a chance. Clint isn’t looking for them, but he’ll find them first, and he’ll kill the lot. Fury’s lot are trying to rein the castle in, to put the fires out and stop the screaming. They’ll be at it all night, but they’ll get the castle back under control in a week or two. It won’t take long to put the wall back up and to capture the escaped prisoners again.

But the boys will get themselves killed if they try to take Clint on head-first.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Wade says, and downs the last of his tankard.

If Clint’s not careful, he’s going to piss off the forest, and Wade has been there and done that. He doesn’t want to be tripped by every root in the woods for the entire duration he’s _in_ the woods, thanks all the same.

Wade listens as he walks, because there’s no point in running. He’ll catch Clint before the Guard do, because he knows where he’s going. Clint will still be there when he gets to him, and he’ll still be making ridiculous noises to the fucking deer when he does.

It doesn’t take him long to catch up to the dragon, even with the leisurely pace he’s taking, and Wade sighs at the sight that greets him. Clint is meeting a stag toe-to-toe, one of the biggest stags Wade’s ever seen, and he’ll put money on it being a forest spirit, because the forest is as pissed as the rest of York at the news that’s getting whispered through the leaves and grapevines and notes making their way around the kingdom.

‘Clint,’ he says, and Clint snarls, keeps his attention on the stag.

‘I killed her!’ he roars, sounding barely coherent at all, all fang and dislocated jaw and brimstone-lined throat. ‘I killed Princess Laura Harcourt!’

The stag gores him. There and then, it lowers its head, and it charges, and its antlers go straight through Clint’s middle. The half-dragon, scaly and winged and horned and purple from toe to rib and wrist to elbow and neck to jaw , like some strange, reptilian satyr costume for a ball or another, roars, but otherwise doesn’t react.

‘Clint,’ Wade sighs, but Clint merely pulls the antlers out of his gut and shoves the stag away.

It tumbles away from him, and runs as soon as it’s found its feet. Perhaps it wasn’t a forest spirit after all. No spirit would run like that. There’s already a pool of blood between Barton’s feet, and Wade sighs.

He’s sighing a lot these days. He hates it.

‘Well, when you’ve finished trying to get the forest to murder you, you let me know.’

Clint crumples into a heap on the ground, limbs folding under him and leaving him a shivering, bloody mess on the floor, and Wade rolls his eyes to the heaven.

‘Peggy,’ he says, as though she can hear him, ‘you need to sort your kids out, for the love of whatever’s up there, I mean, look at this. _Look_ at this.’

But there’s no answer – not that he honestly expected one – and so Wade moves to drag Clint’s arm over his shoulder and haul him to his feet.

‘Up we go,’ he snorts, ‘come on, trouble-maker, let’s get you home.’

‘Home,’ Clint slurs, as his intestines try to escape. Wade obligingly helps him press his hand to hold his guts in. ‘Home. Don’t got a home.’

‘You do have a home,’ Wade assures him. ‘It’s a nice home, last I saw it. You have that purple quilt now. I want one, where did you get it from?’

‘Lower Town,’ Clint slurs. ‘Matthew found it. I don’t know whether he really knew what he was buying when he bought it, though. Can’t see, can he?’

Wade huffs and puffs, but helps Clint hobble until the wound heals over. By the time they reach the cottage, most of the scales have gone, and his horns and wings are put away for another day. Wade chooses not to question his friend over his behaviour.

Mostly because he gets it. He does. He understands. The girl, as far as Clint knows, is dead, and with her, the last shot – for the foreseeable future, anyway – of having his Curse broken is gone. She’s not dead, she’s living and breathing and sleeping an enchanted sleep for the moment, but she’s alive. Hope is not yet lost, or some other poetic shit.

‘Come on, you great lump,’ he says, when Clint staggers over his once-again-human feet. ‘Walk and not dawdle. Are you a man or a mouse?’

‘I’m a dragon.’

‘No you aren’t. You don’t even hoard.’

They both know Clint hoards, but they don’t talk about it. Nobody talks about it. They probably should. They should stage an intervention. Have interventions been invented yet? Wade’s not sure, but he thinks they should do it anyway.

 It takes them the better part of the night to get back to the cottage, because Clint’s determined to drag his feet and not be helpful at all, and Wade can only take so much of the man’s weight without picking him up and carrying him, and he’s not doing that. Not again.

Clint’s the worst person to piggyback; for all the breadth of his shoulders and washboard abs, Clint’s all limb, the bastard. And he’s slippery too. Has no grip, this one. Just slides right off your back. It’s like carrying a particularly squirmy child.

 He cocks an ear, listens, but he can’t hear her. He hasn’t been able to hear her for centuries.

He hopes she’s okay, wherever she is, whatever she’s doing.

She’d been beautiful the last time he’d seen her, and if she’s anything like her mother, she’ll be more beautiful still. But those are thoughts for another day, and he supposes he’ll have to actually seek her out soon, make sure she’s not fallen in with the wrong crowd and gotten herself into trouble. She hates having him come save her, but he’ll do it until the day he dies.

And given how long he’s lived, he doesn’t think he’s going to die for a long time.

Wade gets Clint bathed and in his breeches, and tucked up under his hideous purple quilt, and the hunter just lies there and takes it, lets Wade manhandle him. He even lets Wade stick one of his own fingers up his nose without complaint, and the lack of complaint makes Wade pull the poor bastard’s arm back down and tuck it under the blanket.

‘You’re a sorry old soul,’ he says, and Clint just breathes, stares at nothing.

Wade stands there for another minute waiting for Clint to react, because what’s a minute to the millennium he’s lived? But there’s no reaction, there’s no Clint telling him to fuck off, no Clint falling asleep, no Clint throwing the blankets off and throwing himself around the cottage and wrecking everything in a blind rage the way he does sometimes, because that’s the thing about the Cursed.

They’ve all got anger issues, but who can blame them, really? They’re unable to die, unable to exist as real people any more. They aren’t _human_.

Wade sighs.

‘I’ll come check on you in the morning,’ he says, and rubs Clint’s ear the way one might rub a dog’s. ‘I better find you in a different position.’

He casts an ear to the castle; the fires are out, and the Queen’s Guard are making their way back to the castle now, giving up on finding the dragon until dawn. Rogers is seething, spitting blood, and the others are ignoring him. They’re down two men, and it shows. They’re falling apart. Wade doesn’t blame them; what Laura has done is beyond the pale.

It’ll be months before they’re in any sort of order, and Wade almost hopes Laura doesn’t ever come out of the sleep Peggy’s put her in. It’ll be safer for everyone if she sleeps for a hundred years. No doubt she’ll be awake within a hundred days.

Clint is still lying on his side under the quilt, looking blank and non-existent, and Wade pats his head one last time before going through the door, shutting it behind him. He sits on a log outside, stares at the door, and waits.

In the morning, Clint stumbles out of the cottage, looking dazed and still bloody where Wade didn’t scrub him clean properly. The wound is gone from his belly, and his bruises have faded, but he’s still too blue in the eyes, too white in the cheeks.

They walk in silence to the nearest pool, and Clint stays under the water for several minutes, Wade sitting beside him and staring off into space, listening to the castle.

Clint doesn’t say a word for another week.


	8. The Dream, the Stag, and the Ash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura dreams, and slowly begins to recover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for a little blood, and a lot of angst

Laura is ten when she goes into the woods with the Queen’s Guard alone for the first time. It’s her first outing since her mother’s passing, and she’s not in the mood to go exploring in the woods. It’s the exact opposite of what she wants, actually. What she wants is her mother back, or, failing that, she wants to sleep until she doesn’t wake up again. Saying that to Doctor Erskine makes him sad, makes him tell the Queen’s Guard that they need to take her outside to get "fresh air" and to "see the world." Laura doesn’t want to see the world, she wants to scream and cry and kick the Royal Priest in the shins until he stops offering her solace and religious comfort.

‘God has plans for you, child,’ he’d said. ‘Your mother’s time was done, but yours is beginning.’

Laura is only ten, but she’s never been more offended.

The Queen’s Guard have not yet taken shape as the boys responsible for her life in adulthood, and it shows. Laura runs away from them, and argues with them when they catch her. The then-Captain, a man by the name of Rumlow, he had no idea how to handle her, and Heather hated him, and if Heather hated him, then so did Laura.

So Laura argues with Rumlow and bickers with Pinkerton, and scratches Thompson’s face when it gets too close. They let her get away with it, because Erskine tells them she is going to be lashing out, she’s going to be causing trouble, and their role in her life is not to chastise her for her grief, but to protect her from the world seeking to capitalise on it. Laura is not entirely certain what that means, but she wants all of them, Rumlow and Thompson and Erskine and all the rest, she wants them to go away. She wants them to go where she will never see them again.

It’s been three months since her mother died, and Laura is alone. She’s never been more surrounded, but she’s never been more alone.

For a week or so, she’d screamed to Peggy to have a friend. All she wants, she’d screech, wailing like the banshees wailing for her mother on the storm that had hung over the kingdom the week after Louise died, all she wants is a friend. Just a friend.

She has Monty, and she has Heather, but it isn’t the same. Her cousin and her maid aren’t _friends_. Monty’s around because Uncle Charles is around, and Uncle Charles is only around to help her father handle the paperwork associated with Todd’s abdication, and how he’s now the King in name only until his son is old enough to take the throne. Louise had been, so far as Charles can tell, prepping Laura to take the throne as soon as possible, wanting to secure her daughter as Queen Regnant instead of her son, but the Council, in disarray after the sudden death of the Queen, are refusing to sanction it, and have decided to put Jason on the throne instead. That, so Laura would come to understand through letters exchanged over the following decade, is part of what influenced Todd’s abdication.

 _I would rather be a fugitive sleeping under bushes and stealing pies from windows than live in the same castle_ _as our brother were he to become King,_ Todd writes once, and then never speaks of Jason again.

Soon, Uncle Charles will be gone, and he’ll take Monty with him and Heather is lovely enough, a credit to her family, and to her station, but she is, all told, a maid. She’s a maid and Laura’s a Princess, no matter how young they both are. Heather cannot spare the time to mollycoddle the Princess, no matter how she wishes to.

So as much as she doesn’t want to go to the woods, she takes it as a sign. Peggy would not let her do something she loathed so truly if she did not need to do it, or so Peggy had said.

Laura keeps her mouth shut and her eyes wide, watching everything as she rides on her palomino, clutching the reins tight, even though Rumlow has a tight grip on them too. He doesn’t trust her to ride her steed right, even though she can outride him any day of the week, and often does. She can outride them all.

There isn’t anything interesting in the woods, not at first. They ride for an hour or so, plodding along without stopping, and then she sees it.

‘Blood!’ she cries, pointing at the splatters on the underbrush.

It’s the first word she’s said all morning. She’d said her prayers in silence, lips moving without sound, and she’d eaten breakfast without a word, not acknowledging the food being put before her the way she had three months prior. She had greeted her father or her brother on entering the hall, and she hadn’t said a word to the Queen’s Guard when they came to take her out.

‘Fan out,’ Rumlow orders, ‘check every stone. Princess, stay with me.’

Laura immediately slides off her saddle and hikes her skirt to her knees, creeping forward through the bushes.

‘ _Laura_!’ Rumlow hisses, but she ignores him, and continues her approach.

There’s a shuffling, whining noise, and she kicks off her shoes, pads on bare feet towards it, bending her knees the way Monty taught her, and she feels Pinkerton too close to her, breathing down her neck as she parts the bushes.

‘It’s a dog!’ Pinkerton bellows then, and Laura leaps, elbowing him as hard as she can.

It is a dog, he’s quite right. It’s a dog that’s been mauled by something, something with sharp claws and lots of teeth. It’s alive still, its chest rising and falling and rising and falling and rising and falling, and it’s too fast to be good breathing.

‘He’s dying,’ Laura says, because that’s what the dog is doing.

He’s dying, mauled to death by a wolf or a crow or a hag.

She goes to sit beside him, easing his head up to sit underneath it, stroking his ears and cleaning blood from his broken eye.

‘Hush, little baby,’ she coos, and the dog pants.

His tail wags, once, twice, and falls still.

Laura rubs his neck, and Rumlow comes stomping into view.

‘Princess,’ he says, ‘the kindest thing to do would be to put it out of its misery.’

She can feel the glare on her face, and hopes it’s as good as her mother’s. Her mother could glare anybody into submission, and one day she hopes she can do the same. She will be Queen one day. She will be Queen and she’ll have none of this.

‘No,’ she says, in a firm little voice. ‘I refuse. You will not kill him. We will take him home.’

‘Laura,’ Thompson starts, and she turns her glare to him.

He cows, and she feels something cold and hot at the same time settle in her belly.

‘We will take him home,’ she repeats. ‘He is mine now.’

‘For fuck sake,’ Rumlow growls, and Laura bares her teeth at the same time as the pup, barely full-grown, bares his.

‘Hush,’ Laura says, ‘he won’t hurt you. I won’t let him.’

Rumlow eyes her, and she watches him back, dares him to challenge her. He is not under orders to chastise her, to disobey, to refuse. He is under orders to let her do as she will. It is to allow her to grieve, so Erskine says, to allow her to run amok, to let her act out. She needs to express her grief somehow.

‘The dog will die,’ he tells her, and she snorts.

‘No, he won’t,’ she says, ‘because Peggy won’t let him die.’

The Queen’s Guard roll their eyes, and Rumlow orders Thompson to give him a hand getting the dog over one of their horses so they can take it back to the castle. He grumbles the entire way, and Laura follows him at his elbow when they return and he dismounts to take the dog to Erskine.

‘I am not a veterinarian,’ he says, and looks at Laura’s wide, golden eyes, shimmering with tears. ‘But I will do my best.’

Laura dozes off in the Doctor’s chair while he works, and she wakes to his hand on her knee.

‘Laura?’ he asks, ‘Laura, I managed to repair the damage. He’s blind in one eye. Very lucky to be alive.’

‘Lucky,’ she echoes, and the dog lifts his head.

For the first time since her mother’s passing, Laura smiles.

* * *

She’s not sure why she dreamt of the dog, but she misses his weight against her, so perhaps that is why. She’s not even really awake to be aware that he’s missing, but she’s aware all the same.

Somewhere in the room around her, whatever room it is, someone is singing.

* * *

Laura is sitting in that tavern in Lower Town, tankard cradled in both hands, her hood low over her head. Nobody is paying any attention, and she’s waiting. Waiting for something – she’s not sure what. But she’s waiting. She’s been waiting forever, it feels like. Forever and a day, and then footsteps echo over the din, a jaunty little stride, and a red cloak flops into the chair opposite her, the body inside it big and filling the room without taking up any space at all. The face is hidden by shadow and mask both, and the eyes glow white from those same shadows, staring straight at her.

‘So,’ says the cloaked man, in a voice that doesn’t match the darkness swarming around him. ‘Here we are.’

‘Here we are,’ Laura replies, even though she’s not sure they’re here at all.

‘We need to talk, seriously talk. Have a proper _chat_ , as they say. Have a natter.’

Laura eyes him, and he cocks his head.

‘Perhaps this is not the place. Come, follow me.’

He gets to his feet again, and Laura leaves her tankard behind, follows him where he, a month ago, had followed her.

Throwing open the doors, he leads her outside into the forest. Laura pauses before she steps over the threshold onto the barky path, and the door swings shut behind her. She turns back, only to be staring at the trees.

‘I’m dreaming,’ she says, because this must surely be a dream.

‘Yes,’ the cloaked man replies, and begins to walk. A stag keeps pace with him, out of arm’s reach, watching them. There’s blood on its antlers.

Laura hurries after him, clutches a shawl she wasn’t wearing ten minutes ago tighter around her.

‘Why am I dreaming?’ she asks, ‘why am I dreaming of this? Am I dreaming of you? You’re the man from the tavern, from the street a few hours later, aren’t you? You’re the one that Reverend Murdock warned to stay away.’

The cloaked man laughs.

‘That was Mattie warning me?’ he laughs, ‘girl, you don’t have a clue, do you? Honestly, sweetheart. Honestly.’

Laura eyes his back, the red cloak swaying with each step, and she scurries after him when the forest closes in on her.

‘This isn’t my dream,’ she says a few minutes later, with some wonderment. ‘Is it?’

The man waggles a hand.

‘Yes and no. It’s both of our dreams. It’s your dreamscape, but it’s my story.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘It’s like – you are the book, but I’m the ink.’

That makes sense, after a fashion. Laura does not really understand, but she’ll not admit it.

‘So you’ve invaded my dream,’ she says, with a frown. ‘Why? Why do we need to talk?’

‘You’re in love with Clint,’ he says, and stops, turns back to her. The forest closes in until there are only a few trees scattered around them, and everything else is blackness. ‘But you don’t love him Truly. Not yet, anyway. You’ll need to; there isn’t much time.’

Laura frowns. ‘I can’t love him Truly, not straight away. True Love takes time, and I thought – I thought I did. I thought I loved him Truly, but I was wrong, obviously.’

‘You were very wrong,’ the cloaked man agrees. ‘It’ll hurt, when you wake. Peggy has you under an enchantment right now. She wants you to heal in peace, away from emotional turmoil.’

‘And yet I dream.’

‘And yet you dream.’

They walk for a while longer.

‘How are you here?’ she asks, ‘how can you be walking and talking in my dream as though we are walking and talking in wakefulness? As though this isn’t a dream?’

‘Miss Temple managed to procure a few ingredients to cobble together a drink for me,’ the cloaked man says with spread hands. ‘It was an – adventure – to drink it, ‘cause that’s the funny thing about us, you see. You with your Blessing and me with my Curse, we aren’t really _human_ any more. We’re in – this dreamscape is a – it’s not the Fair Realm, but we aren’t in _our_ realm either. We’re in an in-between, a place that exists, but not like this. Well, either way, I am here now.’

‘Miss Temple? That is – Clint visits Miss Temple, when he has need of medicine.’

‘She’s a good girl, Miss Temple,’ the cloaked man agrees, and comes to a stop. ‘Proper lass. Wade Wilson, by the way. Pleasure to meet you, Princess, even if we are only dreaming.’

‘Wade Wilson,’ Laura replies, and takes the gloved hand Mister Wilson extends. ‘I know that name. You’re – I think Clint mentioned you. You’re one of his friends.’

‘I wouldn’t call him a friend,’ Mister Wilson laughs. ‘He’s probably one of my best friends, but we aren’t _friends_. Not the way that you’re friends with your boys.’

Laura thinks she isn’t much friends with the boys, with the way she’s been behaving of late. She hasn’t endeared herself to any of them.

‘Any which way,’ Mister Wilson says, ‘you’d probably know me better under another name. I’m the Body in the Pond.’

Laura searches, and comes to a halt at the memory of the fairy tale book, turning the page of Clint’s fairy tale, determined to see how it ended, only to find it turning to the next tale in the book. His tale, then, Mister Wilson’s story made into ink and paper and told to children.

‘Do you really do that?’ she asks, and the stag snorts, prompting her to skip a few steps to keep pace with Mister Wilson’s longer stride.

Why are all the men in this kingdom twice the size of her, anyway? Why are they all so tall?

‘Do what?’

‘Lie in ponds.’

‘Of course I do. Have to do something when I can’t sleep. Which is always. I can’t sleep, not any more. Can’t stop hearing everything. I could hear you breathing in Falsworth’s manor, you know. I was in the woods, trying to push Clint’s intestines back in and all I could hear was you breathing.’

Laura stops, and the darkness propels her forward, lest it eat her.

‘You were trying to push his intestines in?’ she asks, breathless. ‘Why? What happened that you had to do something _like that_?’

‘He provoked the forest. He does it sometimes. Anger issues. Happens when you’re Cursed. Us Cursed, we can’t die, not unless it’s broken.’

‘I tried,’ Laura says.

‘I know. I saw. It was a good effort, but not enough. Takes more than that.’

‘If you’re here to chastise me, you can go,’ she says, flat. ‘I don’t need someone else gnawing my arms off over it. I’m doing a perfectly good job of that myself. Or I would be, if I were awake.’

‘You will be soon,’ Mister Wilson says, ‘you’ve got a visitor coming soon, and that’s why I’m here, you see. You’ve got Barton coming, and I need to get you ready for him.’

‘Barton? You mean Clint?’

‘No.’

She frowns at him.

‘Why do you hide your face?’ she asks.

Mister Wilson snorts. ‘Because my Curse burnt my flesh. I’m a – how did he describe it? I look like an overripe avocado.’

‘I see.’

‘Do you want to?’

Laura snorts, and shoves at him, friendly enough. ‘No, thank you.’

They walk in silence for a short while.

‘Does Clint have family, then?’ she asks, ‘if there is another Barton to visit me?’

Mister Wilson winces.

‘Family is a generous term,’ he says, hedging. ‘It doesn’t matter. I am not here to tell you about him. He will be visiting and you need to be ready for his arrival, but your readiness has nothing to do with _him_.’

Laura knots her hands, and stares at the ground in front of them, the bark and leaves and kicked-up stones falling into place before them to create their path.

‘You want me to be ready to break the Curse,’ she says, and Mister Wilson nods.

‘That’s exactly what I want you to do,’ he says.

Laura considers this, and they fall into step, Mister Wilson’s stride shortening so she can keep pace easier. The stag lopes along, staring at them, herding them through the woods. Mister Wilson seems to be unaware of it, for the most part, ignoring it.

‘You think that – that Clint is – ‘

‘You are almost Truly in love with him,’ Mister Wilson says, ‘you were close to breaking the Curse when you tried the first time. But you aren’t quite there. I cannot make you love him Truly; that’s all on you. But you have to be ready to not see him again for some time.’

‘How long is some time?’ she asks, ‘will I see him again?’

‘Undoubtedly. When he finds out what’s coming, he’ll stop at nothing to get back to you. But he has to find out about it first.’

‘Can’t you warn him?’

‘He’s not in the mood to listen,’ he replies. ‘You’ve met him.’

‘He listens to everything I tell him,’ Laura says, and she feels, more than she sees, Mister Wilson raise an eyebrow at her.

‘Hush,’ she sniffs. ‘Tell me what to expect.’

‘’Fraid I can’t do that, kiddo,’ Mister Wilson says, and has the audacity to ruffle Laura’s hair.

‘Still, it’d be nice to know how long I’ve got to prepare myself.’

‘From when you wake? A few weeks, three at the most. Wear a sensible dress.’

‘That’s useless advice,’ Laura chides, and the stag crosses to block their progress.

‘I’ve said too much,’ Mister Wilson says, ‘the Fair Folk are mad.’

Laura stares at the stag, and the stag stares back. Blood drips from its antlers, and Laura breathes, knows that that’s Clint’s blood.

 ‘Well, fine,’ Mister Wilson laughs, holds his hands up. ‘I’ll let this dream go, and I’ll wake up on Miss Temple’s kitchen floor, and no one will be any the wiser.’

Under his breath, he mutters, ‘it’s not like I told her anything important anyway.’

Laura watches the forest fade from around them. Mister Wilson salutes her, and slowly, he fades away too.

The stag stands there and stares at her for several seconds in the black nothingness, its eyes glowing like green fire, and she swallows.

‘I will break Clint Barton’s Curse,’ she tells it. ‘You watch. I’ll break it.’

The stag seems pleased with this answer, and bows its head, blood still dripping, and it fades into nothingness, leaving Laura alone until she, too, fades into the nothingness.

* * *

The nothingness is cold, glowing blue like light shining beneath ice.

Something is leering from behind the ice, watching her. She stares, and she stares, and she stares, but cannot see it.

Eventually, it leaves, and she feels cold, like there is some event she cannot see, some event she cannot control, happening right outside this nothingness. She wonders, as the ice closes tight about her, burns her skin to nothingness, whether this is how Heather feels any time she is separated from Monty, how Sam feels when Natasha leaves on an errand for Commander Fury. She wonders if Clint is alright.

She calls his name, but gets no reply, and the sound echoes until she cannot hear it any longer.

* * *

Laura dreams of waking, feels separated from her body as she watches herself raise her hands to rake her hair away from her face. A body is asleep beside her, on its side facing away, bare shoulder sun-gold and freckles dotted like sunlight stars across the expanse of naked skin. Sand-brown hair, cropped close and mussed with the tight grip of eager hands, and she feels herself smiling, even though she herself is not.

Clint, she realises. Clint is asleep beside her, sleeping peacefully, breathing deep and steady. He’s not even snoring the way she thinks he would.

For a few moments, while her body moves independently of her, she lies there and watches him sleeping. There’s no sign of the Curse on him, but there isn’t, not like this. There are only his eyes, and the tightness of his jaw, and she can’t see either like this.

‘Momma!’

The doors bang open, and she’s not in her bedroom at the castle, this isn’t her bedroom, with its floral walls and its wide dresser. This is – is –

This is the Queen’s suite. This is the bedroom her mother had, when she was still alive, the bedroom where she doesn’t doubt that she and her brothers were conceived. It’s her bed, her dresser, her – her – her man, but it’s not her _room_.

Two children pile onto the bed, dark hair and gingerbread eyes, freckles on their noses and walking coats on their shoulders, and push Clint over. Laura finds herself laughing, and wriggles over to give the children space between them.

Clint grouses under his breath, but obligingly moves to give them space, cuddling around the girl and his fingers reach to brush, feather-light, against Laura’s arm. His eyes are stormy when she meets them, not a trace of the Curse in sight.

‘Morning,’ he whispers, and she lifts her hand to lace her fingers through his. Golden rings glint in the sunlight, a comforting weight around her finger, and a comforting warmth against her skin.

‘Good morning,’ she whispers back, and the dream fades into nothingness.

* * *

The first thing Laura notices when she opens her eyes is that she is not alone. Heather is bustling at her bedside, rearranging flowers and occasionally pausing to smell a particularly red one, or a purple one, or a white one. She finds a white lily in the bunch and throws it over the balcony with a huff and a puff and a tut, something about how inappropriate that was for a get-well bouquet, _honestly_ , Dugan. The only it could be more offensive, so Heather chunters, is if he’d given her, Laura, a white lily as part of a birthday bouquet.

Oh.

Right.

Memory comes flooding back, and Laura is flooding with agony. She cries out, and tries to back herself away from the pain, but she’s stuck in the bed with nowhere to go. Heather whirls away from the balcony with a cry of her own.

‘Darling, darling no, you’re safe, you’re safe. You’re fine, you’re all well.’

She’s not, and Heather’s attempt to assure her has honestly made her feel worse. She tries to tell Heather that, because Heather likes to be told when she’s done something wrong, but all that comes out is a rattling, gravely croak.

‘Shh, poppet, shh, you’ve been through the wringer, you need to rest. I’ll just go get - I’ll get - oh, bother. I’ll find Monty, and he’ll know what to do.’

Laura doesn’t want Monty. She wants Clint, she wants to be sure Clint’s still alive, still alright.

‘Clint,’ she croaks. ‘Get me Clint.’

Heather, halfway to the door, pauses and turns back, a frown on her face.

‘Clint?’ she asks, ‘that’s the - that’s the man in the brown coat at the ball? The one you danced with? Poppet, you - sweetheart, he’s not a good man. He’s - oh, heavens, he was arrested, after he attacked you, and he broke out of the dungeons, taking everyone with him.’

Laura doesn’t believe that, so she says as much.

She says, ‘I don’t believe that.’

Heather backs away from the door and comes to perch herself on the edge of Laura’s bed, reaching to brush the Princess’ hair from her face. She looks haggard, worn-out, and Laura reaches up with trembling fingers to press them to Heather’s fluttering pulse.

‘Heather,’ she breathes, ‘listen. Clint – he’s – he’s – it’s not – ‘

‘Aunty Laura!’

They both jump, and turn. Thomas Falsworth stands in the open doorway, clutching a bedraggled stuffed dog, misshapen and well-worn. It’s one Laura had made for him when he was born, and it looks like he’s not put it down since receiving it.

‘Tommy?’ she asks, ‘hello, sweetheart, I’ve missed you.’

‘I was poorly,’ he proclaims, and waddles over to make gestures at his mother until she lifts him up onto the bed. ‘I had a cold nose.’

‘He had influenza,’ Heather explains as Tommy cuddles up to his Godmother, dog wedged between them nice and secure. ‘It had gone by your birthday, that’s why we were back in the castle. But it was touch and go for a while, so we weren’t sure. Doctor Ross said that he would be fine.’

‘It’s June.’

Laura frowns at her cousin-in-law, and Heather looks sad. Tommy’s head is a warm weight on her collar, and she squeezes him as close as she can, feels the heat of him already prickling at her hairline. But she doesn’t let go of him, and won’t for the world.

‘August now. Peggy had you sleep for a month to recover.’

‘A month? I - I don’t understand. What happened? I remember - we were - I was in the summer house with Cli - Mister Barton, and I - there was this awful noise, like - like - ‘

‘Like a cat scratching its nail on slate,’ Heather offered.

‘Yes! And then - and then - there was - I saw - I saw a - ‘

She trails off; it’s blurry. What she saw, exactly, isn’t clear. Not to her. She thinks she remembers, but memories can change. Mister Wilson had told her everything, she thinks, but she can barely remember what he said.

‘Tommy, darling, go and fetch your Pa,’ Heather says, hand pressing gentle to her son’s mop of angelic blond curls. ‘Tell him he needs to see your Aunty Laura.’

Tommy tumbles off the bed with a chirp, and rushes out of the room. They can hear him crashing into everything on the way.

‘I was asleep for a month?’ Laura asks after a few minutes, staring at her hands. ‘What - what did my father do? Has he been well without me?’

‘The whole castle’s been in an uproar,’ Monty croaks from the door. He’s propped up on canes, struggling to support himself, and Laura tenses for half a second before smiling, wide and shaky.

‘Monty,’ she breathes, and tries to fight the blankets to get out of bed and go to him, but her limbs are leaden and her belly aching. ‘You’re - to ask if you’re well seems an insult.’

‘I’m as well as I can be,’ he says, with that quiet smile he gets when he’s seething. ‘I’m better for seeing you awake.’

‘I was asleep,’ Laura nods, though she doesn’t think she was.

Monty hobbles over and deposits himself on the bed beside his girls, breathing a sigh of relief.

‘Fucking ankles,’ he says, and Heather slaps his knee. She isn’t showing yet, but she rests her hand on her belly as she gets up to help him rearrange himself so that he can wrap his arms around Laura and hold her tight. ‘Hey now, don’t hit the invalid.’

Heather snorts, and combs her hand through his curls, fond. Laura breathes the smell of her cousin in, the sleep-warm sweat and linen smell of his collar, the soap of his skin, the lingering tea he’d been drinking and tobacco he’d been smoking.

‘How do you feel?’ he asks.

‘Like I lost a fight with a dragon,’ she snorts.

‘I’ll go make some tea,’ Heather whispers, and vanishes. Laura watches her go, and sighs softly.

‘She looks beautiful. Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?’

‘She’s been murmuring Brian in her sleep,’ Monty says, ‘the way I murmured Thomas.’

‘Another son? I hope so. I love your boy, I want another one.’

Monty snorts. ‘Get your own,’ he tells her, and she hesitates for a second.

‘I don’t think that’s going to be possible,’ she says, and touches her belly, where she can feel the raised bumps of the scars forming.

His hand is twice the size of hers, wide and pale and strong as anything, squeezing gentle against the back of her hand.

‘You don’t know that,’ he says, and Laura shakes her head.

‘I know,’ she tells him. ‘I know. The – the – Clint, he – his – it went _right through me_. He – it went right through me, Monty, and it killed me. I was dead. I had to have been dead.’

‘You were,’ Monty says, after a moment’s silence, because he’d sworn to never lie to her. ‘You did die. But then you – you just came back to us, without us doing anything.’

‘Huh.’

There isn’t much else she can say to that.

‘You said that the castle had been in an uproar,’ she says, when the silence drags and becomes unbearable.

‘Mm,’ Monty nods. ‘It was – it started with the screeching. God, everything just went silent. This enormous noise, like a cat scratching slate, it rattled the windows and the doors, and it was – I’d snuck off, haha, with Heather, and she went _cold_ , coz. She went cold, just froze completely, and it was – Bucky was yelling for us, so off we went. You were there, and Barton, too. He wasn’t human, not really. All wings and horns and fire and he was – hell, he was twice the size of Dugan! And you just chased after him like it was nothing!’

‘I remember,’ she says, and plucks at the blankets.

She does remember that much, at least. She remembers the stench of burning flesh, the bloody smell as the scales ripped through Clint’s skin and tore him apart. She remembers that.

‘And after we were – after it was over, you were – Steve took you back to the castle, and we followed as quickly as we could, but I – ha, I broke one ankle and sprained the other, dislocated it, so Sam says, and my thigh bone’s cracked in two places, and all this other shit, I couldn’t _walk_. I tried, but Dugan ended up slinging me over his shoulders and running me back to the castle. Bucky – Bucky lost an arm.’

Laura frowns at him. ‘How? I – I heard the screaming, I remember hearing the screaming, but I didn’t see – I don’t remember seeing.’

Monty plays with her hair for a moment, sleep-tangled curls tumbling over her shoulders, and he considers it for a minute.

‘He – when Barton knocked you away, I went for him, and he punched me halfway across the field, haha, and I couldn’t get back up until after it was too late to do anything to help. Bucky tried to – he told me later, he tried to stab him, ‘cause hey, the fellow was out of control, and you were barely reacting, I wasn’t reacting at all, and someone had to do something. So Bucky tried to fight him down, but Barton – Gods, Laura, he just bit his arm clean off. Spat the bone out like he’d bitten into a leg of lamb.’

Laura doesn’t say anything, barely even breathes.

‘Oh,’ she says in the end.

And then, after another stagnant pause, she asks, ‘is he well?’

‘Steve sent a letter, to update us,’ Monty replies with a shrug, as Heather returns with the tea. ‘Says that Stark’s made the Sergeant a new arm, some steel contraption he can control like a real hand? Says it weighs a tonne, and Buck can barely carry it about, let alone control it, but he says it’s better than nothing. He’s been real shook up.’

‘Bucky?’ Laura asks, ‘or Steve?’

‘Both of them,’ Heather says, setting the tray on the bedside and setting about pouring three cups out, ‘Steve stopped by, at the beginning of the month, to check that all was well here, and he was so pale, all grey and shaking. I haven’t seen him lately, but Dugan and Gabe have been going back and forth to the castle this past month, and they say neither he nor Bucky are looking all that well.’

‘They don’t like being separated from her,’ Monty tells his wife, and Heather hums, hands him a cup, and Laura another. ‘Goes against their duty to leave her here with us.’

‘You’re a Major,’ Heather sniffs, ‘you’re quite capable of protecting the Princess.’

‘I’m crippled,’ he shrugs, ‘far as they’re concerned. I can barely walk, never mind get into a duel over her.’

‘You’ll heal, in time,’ Heather assures him, and perches on the side of the bed, tea cradled in her lap. ‘Nobody needs to know that Laura’s awake yet. Nobody knows she’s here, and Peggy won’t wake her in the illusion until she’s ready to return to the castle.’

Laura listens to them chatter, and stares at the gold of her tea, shivering with the tremor in her hands, so she presses it into her lap to quell the worst of it. Monty and Heather continue to talk, to chatter and bicker, cosy and familiar, about Monty’s injuries, and take no notice of her, and that’s what Laura wants, really. She wants to be left alone, to be hidden away from the world to just – to just –

To just what?

Waste away?

It feels ridiculous, to not want to move, but she feels so – so – _empty_. Like there’s nothing to her. Like there’s just her body and her soul is disconnected, watching from the outside.

‘Finish your story,’ she interrupts, ‘you were talking about the castle.’

Monty jumps, startled by the loudness of her voice, and Laura continues to stare straight ahead, unseeing.

‘Oh,’ he says, ‘right. When we got back to the castle, the entire place was screaming. All the Ladies, and most of the Gentlemen, they were all hollering and wailing like banshees, and Steve just carried you through to the infirmary. I don’t remember much of what happened, just that it was dawn by the time it was all over. The sun was up and I was allowed to hobble back to our rooms to get my things so we – Heather and I – could come back here, so we could return home. Later, Steve came to ask if we could take you with us, hide you away in the manor so that you could recover without having the castle bustling around you.’

‘I see. And – and Barton?’

‘I don’t know,’ Monty says, ‘I was still in the infirmary, but Steve took everyone who was still on their feet, Natasha too, with the intention of finding him, and then he brought him back to the dungeons. There was a lot of screaming then, too.’

‘He dragged Barton,’ Heather explains, ‘from where they found him to the dungeon, by the wrist. He was a mess. Made a real mess of the carpets, dragging him all over them. Mud and blood and all sorts. I’m glad I didn’t have to clean them, actually.’

The lightness of her tone doesn’t detract from what she’s saying.

‘Steve dragged him?’ Laura asks, and feels something like anger boil in her belly. ‘I don’t care _what_ Clint did! I don’t _care_ , he deserves better treatment than that. Captain or not, I swear to God, I’ll – ‘

She cuts herself off. What will she do? Steve had been grieving, and he had grieved in the only way he could think to grieve; he’d taken it out on the one responsible for his grief. And that was fair, to a degree, because why shouldn’t Steve have taken it out on the one responsible?

‘Laura,’ Monty says, in that coaxing, gentle voice he has when he’s trying desperately to stop her starting a duel he’ll have to fight in her honour. She’s not done it recently, and she thinks she’d fight her own duels now. ‘Laura, Barton is a Queen Killer, he’s _convicted_ of the crime.’

‘Wrongly so!’ Laura cries. ‘I am neither queen nor am I dead!’

They fall silent for a minute.

‘Heather said that Barton broke out of the dungeons.’

‘Quite violently, too, so Dugan said,’ Monty nods. ‘We had to send him and Gabe, and Pinky, too, back to the castle to try and help calm everything down, and join the hunt for Barton. The dungeons went up in flame, and they’re saying that that part of the castle has been destroyed. He destroyed the dungeons to escape.’

‘No,’ Laura says, ‘no, he wouldn’t – the – there must be an explanation. Clint isn’t – he wouldn’t break down the walls like that, he’d have stayed in the castle, awaiting his punishment. If you all _lied_ to him and told him I was dead – he loved me. I am _sure_ of that. He loved me enough to say no, and he – he wouldn’t fear his execution, not if it was for killing me.’

Monty opens his mouth, but no words come out, and Heather can’t bear to look at either of them, staring at the cup in her lap.

‘I think I’d like to be alone,’ Laura says, and without a word, Heather helps her husband to his feet and they shut the door quietly behind them.

* * *

Heather finds Laura easing herself out of bed on the fourth day.

‘Don’t you dare,’ she yelps, and rushes to grab Laura’s arm, holding her steady. ‘Doctor Erskine said you weren’t fit to leave bed yet.’

‘I’m going mad staying here. At least let me sit by the window.’

Heather hesitates, and then ducks under the princess’s arm.

‘Fine,’ she nods. ‘We’ll try. But the moment it becomes unbearable, you tell me.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Together, they manage to get Laura hobbling to the armchair in the corner, and they get her settled nicely, with a coverlet over her knees and a book in her lap.

‘I’m aware that I’m expecting too much,’ Laura murmurs, ‘but the boys, did they bring any of my things when they brought me here?’

Heather shakes her head. ‘The carriage only had the three of us and what we brought to the party.’

Laura sighs; she hadn’t expected them to pack any of her clothes, but still, having something to wear that wasn’t one of Heather’s dresses would be nice.

‘Did Stark ever get to use his fireworks?’

‘I’ve not seen any. I think he’s scared, in case it scares some old dear and her heart gives out.’

Laura doesn’t believe that, and says as much. Heather shrugs, and asks if she’d like tea.

‘If you’ve got that honey tea you had last time I visited, yes please.’

‘I’ll see what we’ve got,’ Heather says, and leaves her be.

They haven’t spoken beyond pleasantries and basic yes-no questions for the past three days, since that morning she awoke to find the castle in ruins and her True Love a fugitive.

The weather is delightful, warm and bright, clear skies, with butterflies coming through the open window and birds singing joyfully, oblivious to what’s been happening to the humans. Laura wishes she could have that innocence, that naivety. It would be nice, to not know what was out there.

She puts a hand on her belly, spreads her fingers to align them with Clint’s claws. They’re sore to the touch, and she thinks they will be for the rest of her life.

Monty had said that Erskine and the castle’s doctors had worked throughout the night to save her, that it had been dawn before Peggy had been able to step in and put her into a healing sleep. The month had been lost to her, and she will only know what Monty and Heather are willing to tell her of the castle, of her people, her family. Of Clint.

Heather says he’d escaped the dungeon, and Monty had said that they’d led a manhunt for him, to no avail. If they can find him now, they’ll do their best to kill him; he is not only a suspected Queen Killer, but he is now a fugitive, and quite possibly a confirmed murderer, if the escape had resulted in any deaths. No doubt his Curse would keep him for the most part invulnerable, no matter how they tried to kill him.

When Heather returns, Laura is standing naked before the mirror, twisting as best she can to look at her back.

‘Laura?’

‘It just hurts on the outside,’ she says, ‘where the - where he stabbed me.’

‘Sweetheart, I.’

‘It wasn’t his fault,’ Laura bursts out, fists clenching. Her throat is tight and her heart pounding against her ribs, a rabbit’s kicking that has her lungs breathless. ‘It wasn’t, Snow, it wasn’t.’

Laura hasn’t called Heather “Snow” since she was 13, after Monty had been made an honest man and Laura had ordered Dugan to throw a particularly rude councilman in the unmucked stables for disparaging comments made against the breeding of Lord Falsworth’s wife.

Immediately, Heather is gathering her Princess into her arms, pressing their cheeks together and humming in her ear.

‘Sweetheart, no one said it was his fault, not a single one. We’re just worried about you, is all. You changed so much after you met him, and then this happened.’

‘It happened because I told him I loved him,’ Laura sobs. ‘I said - I said "I love you" and it wasn’t enough! It wasn’t enough.’

‘Did you mean it?’ Heather asks her, ‘or were you trying to break the Curse?’

‘Did I - of course I meant it!’ Laura snipes. ‘Why would I not mean it? I love him, and I want to break the Curse, so of course I tried! Does – does he not love me, then? Is that why I couldn’t break it?’

Heather doesn’t reply for a long moment, and when she does, her words are measured, quiet.

‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘Monty thinks he does, and Steve visited a few - days ago, and he said that he doesn’t think Mister Barton knows how much he loved you.’

‘Loved. You said loved.’

Heather pulls away to cup Laura’s face, thumbs under her raw eyes and she presses a kiss to her nose.

‘Sweetheart, listen to me, and actually listen, not just take what you want to hear. Mister Barton is gone. There was a manhunt for two weeks – even Mister Stark got involved; he brought in Colonel Rhodes to try and help. Monty sent the Queen’s Guard we have, but it’s not looking likely that we’ll find him. He’s a fugitive, Laura; he’s been convicted of regicide. It doesn’t matter that news is spreading of your survival, because people aren’t stupid, they know that if not for Peggy, you’d have stayed dead. If they manage to catch him, Mister Barton will be killed.’

‘They won’t be able to,’ Laura chokes out. ‘He – he told me that the dragon, he’ll – Snow, the dragon won’t die. It’s not a normal dragon. It’s a fucking Curse.’

‘Don’t swear.’

Laura lets of a wretched noise, a sob and a cry and a scream all at once, and Heather shushes her, pulls her in, careful not to hold her tight across her scars, and lets her bury her face.

‘I’m sorry, sweetheart, I am. But your Mister Barton’s going to be made to pay, one way or another, for what he did. Curse or not, he still came to the ball, knowing that you were there, and knowing what the Curse means.’

‘He had a gift for me,’ Laura says, and touches the citrine around her neck. ‘Two. This.’

‘We’d wondered where that came from. It’s not your usual necklace.’

‘He made it. He saw it and he said – it matches my eyes. Colour of honey, he said.’

Heather breathes like she’s going to start crying, and Laura remembers, belatedly, that Heather is pregnant, that crying all over her about her regicidal dragon-man lover is surely doing her no favours.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, and forces herself to stop crying, taking a few shuddering breathes to steady herself. ‘I’m sorry, I’ll stop, you don’t need to hear it, not with the little one on the way. Monty said you wanted a boy. Brian, he said.’

‘He likes to say that I’m mumbling in my sleep, but I don’t want another boy,’ Heather laughs, but it’s teary. ‘I’m already outnumbered; I need some girls to balance it out. We’ll have to get you married to a nice prince, get a whole brood of daughters.’

She realises what she said just as she says it, and the horror crosses her face.

‘Oh, heavens. Laura I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I - oh no.’

Laura refuses to cry again.

‘I didn’t want children anyway,’ she says, ‘my will’s already named Monty as my heir. There’s no need to change it all because of children. I’d have to marry anyway, and who’d want to marry me now? Not even good to look at. What am I worth as a wife now?’

They turn to look in the mirror at Laura’s stomach, warped and angry, brilliant red, jagged and black with catgut stitches. With how pale her skin is now, and how thin she looks for the little she’s eaten, she looks – there are no words for it.

‘I didn’t want children anyway,’ the Princess repeats, quiet, and touches her belly with her fingertips.

She hasn’t mentioned the dream she’d had in the enchanted sleep, the dream of a boy and a girl with gingerbread-brown eyes and dark hair in walking coats climbing into bed between her and her husband. For they’d been _married_ in the dream, Clint with not a drop of ice-blue in his eyes, and them both with rings on their fingers, golden and _royal._ She’d been a Queen in her dream. She wonders if, perhaps, she had seen the future she could have had had she waited. If she’d only _waited_ to say that she loved him instead of rushing it.

 _Gods above_.

And now, because of her impulsive, brash desire to do something _good_ , to _fix_ her love, she’s ruined any chance she has at being a Queen, a wife, a mother. She’s nothing now, not worth the cost of her soap.

‘I ruined everything, didn’t I?’ she sighs, and pulls away from Heather to get her dress. Bending hurts, but she grits her teeth and yanks it over her head.

‘No, sweetheart, you – ‘

‘Monty could have died because of me. Bucky lost an arm. Prisoners are dead. The castle is in disarray. Clint is – I forced the Turn on him because I couldn’t keep my stupid mouth shut! I’m a fool for thinking I could break the Curse just by running my fat mouth! I’m _stupid_! I’m just a foolish little girl, and I should – I should – Peggy shouldn’t have saved me, Heather. She should have left me dead.’

‘No, no, don’t talk like that.’

Laura grits her teeth, and stares resolutely out of the window, standing there with her fists clenched.

‘I just want to be left alone,’ she says, ‘just leave me be, please.’

Heather hesitates, and then does as bid, and leaves her to her ruminations.

* * *

The weeks pass much the same. Laura stays alone in the guest suite at the Falsworth estate for great lengths of time, sitting in the chair by the window, or lying in bed, and she stares at the gardens, or at the ceiling. There is little to hold her attention; Heather brings her books from the library, and doesn’t force her to eat her plain, little meals in the dining hall with her cousins, and Monty occasionally brings her news from the outside world. Tommy spends as much time as Laura can bear to give him with her, playing motion-easy games, or reading together, or making up their own stories.

But seeing Tommy, with his father’s nose and his blond curls, it hurts. It hurts because Laura knows she will never have her own with the man she loves, purely because of her folly. She caused this to happen; it was her own doing, no matter how Heather tries to dissuade her.

Dugan and Gabe visit, when they’re on the grounds, which is often, but not often enough. Dugan sweeps her off her feet and six feet into the air when he sees her awake, and she bursts into tears and cries in his arms for several long minutes, the pair of them pressed tight around her. They promise, at her behest, to not tell the rest of the boys.

‘They’ll all be here in an hour,’ she says, ‘and I don’t – I don’t want to see them, just yet. I’m not ready to see them.’

They don’t understand, because they close ranks when one is injured or upset or otherwise hurt, and don’t leave the pile of limbs and unwashed pelisses until they’re right with the world again. But they listen to her, for once, and ask only that she doesn’t leave them wanting. She promises to see them whenever they’re around.

When Monty can walk without the canes, at least for a time, he convinces her to walk in the gardens, and Laura walks with him, for short walks at a time, watching for the stag at all times. They talk, of the castle, of the ball, of Clint. Laura tries to explain the man to her cousin, but Monty doesn’t seem to care enough to understand. As far as he is concerned, Laura had been killed by a man she purported to love, and who she was adamant loved her in turn. How she still loves him is beyond him, and honestly, it is beyond Laura, too. She knows, logically, that she should not love him for what he’d done. She should, rightly, be terrified of him, but she finds herself breathing deep to calm the excited flutter of her heart at the mere thought of him.

She watches the trees turning red from the window, and she thinks of the red of Clint’s blood, sticking like glue to the antlers of the stag. She thinks of the fire burning along his skin, fluttering purple at the edges, like the fire in Stark’s laboratory.

She misses Stark, she misses the castle, she misses her dog. But she isn’t ready to return, not yet.

Once, she calls for Peggy, but gets no reply. She would have thought that Peggy would come to see her, because surely Peggy was the one to wake her.

But there’s no sign of her Godmother; no hide nor hair of her, and no letters to explain her absence.

‘Just answer me,’ Laura says, ‘please.’

There is no answer, so Laura says nothing else to her, and her days continue in the same vein.

* * *

Laura wakes to a sensation so familiar she almost doesn't wake at all, but it's been two months without Clint near her. She's desperate, though she can't bear to admit it to Monty or to Heather, to see Clint again, to hold the ridiculous man close, to kiss him and breathe him in.

'Clint?' she hums, rolling over to finally see him, to touch him, to hold him.

She’d been dreaming, after a fashion, of their children again, though it made her ache in places she couldn’t reach to do so.

But it isn't Clint sat on the other side of the bed, it's that red-haired man from the archery range.

Immediately, her mouth is open to scream, and he claps his hand over it, trapping the scream in her throat. His palm tastes of blood and ash against her lips, and she bites, the way Monty taught her to, sinking her teeth in with the full power of her jaw, determined to rip through flesh. There's an intake of breath, fingers gripping her jaw to prize it open, but no other reaction. The grip tightens when she resists, and she stares, horrified, at the man.

'Laura,' he starts, sighing and staring, as if - if - almost as though he cannot quite believe that he's got the Princess under his hand.

His eyes are very, very blue, the same blue as Clint’s, and there is a similarity there, something the same in their face, but something very different too. She searches his face, desperately looking for some hint, some _clue_ , but all she sees, all she can see is the blue of the ice in his eyes.

Finally, he gets his hand free, and examines it, the bite marks and the blood. He sighs again, and carefully wipes the blood from Laura’ mouth with his thumb.

‘That was unnecessary,’ he says, but he doesn’t let up on his grip of her chin.

‘Barton,’ she snarls, because he’s the Barton that Mister Wilson warned her of, the Barton that wasn’t Clint.

She isn’t wearing a sensible dress.

Taking a deep breath, she asks, ‘are you here to kidnap me?’

Barton cocks his head.

‘How did you know?’

‘You snuck into my bedroom,’ she says, and remembers what Mister Wilson told her.

Clint would stop at nothing to come back to her, he’d said. Mister Wilson had said that when Clint found out what was coming, he’d stop at nothing. This, she thinks, this is what was coming.

‘Let me put on a sensible dress, and some shoes,’ she says, ‘and then I’ll come with you. No kidnapping necessary.’

Barton doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself; he lets go of her, surprised, and Laura cannot believe her luck. She pushes the blankets off her legs as if about to get out and then abruptly turns, kicks him square in the face, even though her guts protest at the rapid movement. Tumbling backwards off the bed, she screams as loud as she can.

‘Monty!’ she screeches, and as she scrambles to get back onto her feet and rush for the door, Barton’s hand tangles into her hair and he drags her back onto the bed.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and he almost looks it. ‘I’m doing this for your own good. It’s going to help you. I promise.’

She spits in his face, and tries to claw at his eyes, but he bats her hands away, pins her to bind her hands behind her back. Something crashes in the hallway outside, and they both freeze, stare at the door.

‘Oh, Laura,’ Barton sighs, ‘I don’t want to kill him, it’s like killing a wounded dog.’

Laura tries her best to wriggle free, but Barton has a knee solidly pressed in the small of her back, and he drags a burlap sack over her head, pulls the string tight enough to make her gasp, but not choke.

‘Monty!’ she screams, and there’s the sound of a sword, too loud in the silence. ‘Get Clint! Find Clint! _Find him_!’

Movement, the breadth of shoulders under her wounds, and she sobs for the pressure of it, and movement, blurry, quick movement, turning and dropping and the rush of air. She thinks she hears the door burst open, but the air is cold against her exposed skin. A nightgown isn’t suitable for the middle of the night in the countryside like this.

‘ _Laura_!’ Monty bellows, but it sounds distant already.

She can smell a horse, hear its nickering, and then she’s slung over the saddle, and Barton mounts beside her, his knee too close to her head. He kicks the horse into a gallop, and the motion makes her dizzy. Over the weeks, she’s not been eating right, not been drinking right. There’s nothing to vomit, but nothing to steady her. It doesn’t take long for her to faint, and then there’s nothing but the warmth of hands on the back of her neck. She almost, in the delirium between consciousnesses, convinces herself that they’re Clint’s hands.

But they aren’t.

‘I’m sorry,’ Barton says again, though the words have lost all meaning. ‘I’m so sorry.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiits barnsssssssss <3


	9. Four Days in the Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint does his job, and Laura breathes.

‘Get Clint!’ Laura is hollering. ‘Find Clint! _Find him_!’

Heather rushes after her husband as he stumbles off down the corridor as fast as his feet will take him. His bones are mostly healed now, but he’s still shaky on his feet, still needing to rest every so often. He’s been inactive recently, resting and recovering and recuperating, but he’s still on his feet and out the door before Laura’s finished screaming. He kicks the doors open and barges in a second too late; Laura is gone, and her kidnapper with her.

‘ _Laura_!’ he bellows, and Heather bursts through the doors to the view of him leaning out the window like he could still reach her.

‘Monty,’ she says, and he sags, head bowed and shoulders low.

‘Snow,’ he says, ‘Snow, she’s gone. She’s fucking _gone_!’

‘Hush,’ she coos, crossing the room to pull him down into her arms. ‘She’s not, she’s not gone. We’ll get her back.’

‘Be realistic,’ he chokes against her neck. ‘Be real, Heather, what can we do? I’m not fit to ride, and you’re _pregnant_.’

‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,’ she says, tone firm enough that he stops heaving for breath and _listens_ , ‘I’m going to find Barton. That’s what she screamed, isn’t it? Find Clint. That’s what I’m going to do.’

‘You don’t know where you’re going.’

‘Yes, I do,’ Heather says. ‘Laura talks in her sleep. I need to go to Miss Temple’s pharmacy, in Lower Town. Clint goes there for medicine. If anyone knows where he’ll be, it’ll be her. And if not her, then it’ll be that Reverend she went to see, Murdock, I think? He’ll know. I’ll go to the castle first, come back here, and go to Lower Town from here. It’s fine, darling, really. I can manage quite alright.’

‘I don’t want you to go to Lower Town,’ he says, ‘I’ll go.’

‘No, you won’t. What you’re going to do is go to the castle, and you’re going to tell the boys what’s happened. And if Steve gives you any grief, you remind him that I know where he sleeps, alright? I know where he sleeps and I'm not afraid to put nettles in his bed.’

Monty laughs, wet, and she kisses his hair. Her heart is pounding against her ribs, and she’s sure he can feel it, just as she can feel his heart pounding. Neither of them mention it. Every second they waste here is another second Laura is getting further from them.

‘We’ll get dressed,’ she says, ‘and we’ll go to the stables, and we’ll go. Ma’ll take Tommy, we don’t have to worry about that, you know she’ll be happy to have him. I’ll ask her to take him to Gram, you know Gram’ll be eager to tell him tales again.’

‘We’ve been bad parents,’ he says, ‘we’re spending no time with him.’

‘He understands,’ she says, ‘he knows. I spoke to him, darling, I told him that his Aunty Laura, she’s not doing well. She needs our help, and that takes us away from him. He understands. He’s used to us being gone. And it won’t be long. Now! Come along, Lord Falsworth, we need to get you dressed.’

‘I can put my own trousers on,’ he sniffs, and straightens.

Heather cranes her neck to look at his face, and he offers her half a smile.

‘Yes,’ she agrees, ‘you just need help getting out of them again.’

He barks out a laugh and starts hobbling towards the door. Heather casts a look back at the window, where the moonlight is spilling out across the room, and sighs before following her husband.

* * *

Monty is being very vocal about how little he likes her plan, but Heather ignores him, puts on a travelling dress and does her hair the way she used to wear it when they met. She eases the little golden band from her finger, tucking it onto Monty’s littlest finger, tells him to keep it safe for her.

‘I’ll be back in a day,’ she says, leaning over to kiss him when she’s ready, ‘with Barton in tow. I promise.’

‘Take care of yourself,’ Monty says, because he’s tried to argue with her the entire time to no avail. ‘Come home in one piece. If you’re not back by sun-up tomorrow, I’m coming after you.’

‘I’ll be fine. Don’t forget to ask Commander Fury.’

‘I won’t.’

And with a kiss to her son, a promise from her parents to keep him safe, Heather is down in the stables, seeking out their driver to take her into Lower Town.

‘It’s rough down that way, ma’am,’ the driver says, but she glares him into parking his backside in the seat at the front too.

They arrive before dawn, and Lower Town is wrong, off, like soured milk poured into tea. The streets are empty but for the last few girls hoping to get some of the early risers into an alley before the sun comes up and working becomes much more difficult. Heather had never really understood having to work the streets for enough money for a bed for a night, and Laura had understood it as far as wanting _better_ , whatever better amounted to. Solving the problems of Lower Town and Lynne’s Brook were, so she had proclaimed for a decade, her priority when she became Queen, so adamant as she was to be the monarch.

Fog is hanging low in the streets, and Heather tells her driver to wait at the town gates for her, and proceeds to ignore his protests, walking off down Main Street. She hasn’t set foot in Lower Town since before she was hired at the castle, and it hasn’t changed an inch. Almost two months have passed since the horror of the Princess’ birthday celebrations, but the bunting is still strung up between most buildings, and there are still portraits of her nailed to every other blank wall. Some of them have been torn, others ruined by graffiti, but still they stay there, her golden eyes painted in every shade available, her hair in every style, every gown she’s ever been seen to publicly wear painted or sketched in perfect detail. It’s almost unsettling, the detail she’s been depicted with, but Heather reasons that she is the Crown Jewel, if any face was to be put onto paper without a single line out of place, it would be hers.

She kicks a bottle into the gutter as she walks over the cobbles, and watches her breath fog. Lower Town has not changed much since she was last walking through its streets, but she finds herself longing for the warmth of the capital. Even in winter, there was a warmth to the city that couldn’t be found anywhere else. Not even the castle held that kind of warmth.

After several long minutes’ walking, she catches the arm of a bedraggled, bleary-eyed whore.

‘I need directions,’ she says, drawing out her accent as best she can.

The whore eyes her, and Heather opts to feel flattered.

‘Where to, flower?’

‘Miss Temple’s pharmacy,’ she says, and keeps her eyes fixed between the whore’s.

‘Miss Temple? Oh! ‘Er. Yes, I know ‘er. She’s jus’ down the street, keep walkin’ right, and she’s got a black door, with a gold knocker, real smart-lookin’. I reckon that priest of ‘ers bought it for her, y’know. Fixed her shop up after them there doctors took offence to her bein’ black an’ a gal an’ all.’

‘I see,’ Heather says, because she just wants directions. ‘Thank you. Have a good – morning.’

The whore eyes her some more, and thanks her. Before she gets a chance to offer Heather a “good morning,” Heather is on her way down the street, clutching her cloak tighter about herself, drawing the hood low over her head.

Miss Temple is just opening up when Heather arrives, a pretty woman with dark skin and darker curls in a plain dress and apron already tied about her waist, holding the keys in her hand like they’re a weapon.

‘Miss Temple?’ Heather asks, and stands close enough that she can whisper.

Miss Temple looks baffled.

‘Can I help?’

Heather checks around them, but they seem to be alone.

‘My name is Heather,’ she says, ‘I’m – I’m looking for Clint Barton.’

Miss Temple’s expression closes off, and she raises her voice enough to be heard by any who might be listening.

‘Lots of people are looking for Clint Barton, Miss. His face is plastered all over this town. Five-hundred gold crowns to anyone who can find him, a thousand if you can bring him in alive. He isn’t here.’

Heather purses her lips.

‘Miss Temple, listen – can we go in? I’d rather not do this on the street. It’s _very_ important.’

Miss Temple eyes her suspiciously, and she has every right to; no doubt everyone with half a mind has come asking her questions. Her man was well known to have a Curse, and if he had a Curse, then it stood to reason that he knew any other Cursed man, and Barton was a Cursed name.

Heather is beginning to understand why Barton is a Cursed name, after almost thirty years of not really understanding why.

The pharmacy is a dark-wood and white wall place, with bottles and tins and jars lining the walls, a counter strewn with paper in the centre.

There’s a broken bottle on the floor, and Miss Temple huffs.

‘They’ve been back,’ she says, and goes to sweep it up, ‘I thought we’d stopped this.’

‘Who’s been back?’

‘The Medical Guild,’ Miss Temple says, ‘they’ve been trying to shut me down for years for everything under the sun. I’ve had everything under the sun come through these doors. Death threats, poisoned milk, dog shit in bags on fire, you name it. We’ve done all we can, but Matt – Reverend Murdock, his friend Mister Nelson, he can’t do much unless we can catch them.’

‘I’ll sort it,’ Heather promises. ‘It’s the least I can do if you can help me. I need to find Mister Barton, Miss Temple. It’s very important.’

‘You don’t look like you particularly need the bounty, cheap dress or not.’

‘It’s not about the bounty,’ Heather assures her, pushing her hood back to look up at the taller woman more clearly. ‘I am Lady Falsworth, you see. My husband is the Princess’ fourth cousin.’

Miss Temple goes very pale.

‘Oh,’ she says, and Heather smiles, sweetly.

‘I am going to be very honest, now,’ she says. ‘The Princess is alive and well. News has been spreading, I know, of her survival. Her Godmother put her in an enchanted sleep for a month, to help her recover from her injuries, and she woke from that slumber a few weeks ago. We’ve kept it very quiet and very secret, because she is still very badly wounded. The injuries she got, they won’t be healing quickly.’

‘I heard she was stabbed through the gut.’

‘She was, after a fashion. There was some drama involved. These spell-bound folk, they get themselves into all sorts of mischief. But she is alive and well. Or, she was, last we saw of her. Four hours ago, she was taken from her bedroom on our estate. Her last words were a demand that we find Mister Barton.’

Miss Temple leans on the counter and rubs he forehead, cursing under her breath.

‘If you know where Mister Barton is, I would appreciate it. Every minute I spend looking for him is a minute the Princess is taken further from us.’

‘Kidnapped?’ she repeats, as if she can’t quite believe it. ‘Oh, heavens. Right. Follow me.’

She leads Heather into the back room, and there, under the bottom shelf of a crooked unit rammed to warping point with boxes and jars and bottles full of faded labelled things, is Clint Barton, asleep under a pile of moth-eaten blankets and looking sorry for himself.

He’s even sorrier when Heather kicks him in the ribs.

‘Get up,’ Heather barks, when he’s cracked his head on the shelf above him and finished cursing.

He eases himself out from under the shelves and gets to his feet, brushes himself down. He stinks of blood and alcohol and his clothes are filthy, two months of beard growth left untrimmed and wild on his chin. His jerkin is well-worn and his breeches torn and bloody at the knees. God knows what Laura saw in him, and indeed, still sees in him.

‘You reek,’ she says, and Clint offers her half a smile.

‘Is it any wonder?’ he asks, and he sounds like death has died in his chest, ‘look at what I fucking did.’

Then peers at her, looks at her properly, and takes a visible moment to connect her face to one in his memory, before cursing some more and going very pale indeed.

‘Mrs Falsworth, ma’am,’ he breathes, and Heather sniffs.

‘Barton. Come along.’

She turns on her heel and heads back into the shop.

It takes Barton a few minutes to follow her, but he manages eventually, and the ladies are talking when Clint makes it back into the shop.

‘I’ll be sure to have my man pay you a fair wage,’ Mrs Falsworth is saying when Clint thinks to open his ears. ‘You’ve done well to keep Barton alive and hidden, and it’s only fair we pay you for doing so.’

‘I didn’t do it for you,’ Miss Temple replies, and Mrs Falsworth hums.

‘Perhaps not. But you’ve done us a favour by doing so all the same. And it’s only fair to repay you the kindness.’

‘I don’t want or need your money.’

‘Then we’ll have your pharmacy protected,’ the shorter woman bargains, ‘from the Medical Guild and any who would seek to do you harm.’

Miss Temple looks like she knows that she’s going to lose this battle, but doesn’t want to give in, and so Clint steps in to divert the conversation.

‘Where are we going?’ he asks, and Mrs Falsworth glowers.

It’s almost as good as Miss Temple’s glower.

‘To the Falsworth estate,’ Mrs Falsworth says, ‘where you’re needed. I’ll explain on the road.’

Clint doesn’t like the sound of that, and he says as much.

He says, ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

‘You don’t have a choice. Have you a hood to hide your face?’

He shakes his head; even with his visage plastered all over the walls, Lower Town’s inhabitants can’t seem to look past their noses, and he’s gotten by unscathed so far.

‘Miss Temple, have you something to disguise him? At least for the moment?’

‘The posters aren’t very accurate,’ Clint protests, and Mrs Falsworth sniffs.

‘You’ll do as you’re told,’ she chides.

Clint pipes down, and Miss Temple fetches a cloak.

‘It’s one of Matthew’s,’ she says as she throws it over Clint’s shoulders and drags the hood over his head, ‘it should be plenty long enough.’

‘It will have to do,’ Mrs Falsworth says, and pulls her own hood back over her head. ‘My husband will be in touch. Barton, move. We’re losing time.’

Clint can do nothing but follow after her.

* * *

In the carriage, Heather throws her hood back and breathes a sigh of relief.

‘Barton,’ she says, ‘listen very carefully. When we get back to the estate, we are not going to have time to lollygag. Laura is alive. She is alive, and awake, and she has been kidnapped.’

For a few long seconds, Barton doesn’t breathe.

‘She’s been what?’

‘Kidnapped. She’s gone.’

Barton’s eyes go very, very blue, and Heather watches him as he breathes and his skin ripples as though something is moving beneath it. He closes his eyes and takes a very deep breath, and when he opens his eyes again, he doesn’t really look any more human, but he’s stabilised, at the least.

‘Gone.’

‘Gone.’

He doesn’t say a word for the rest of the journey back to the estate, and he follows her wordlessly to the drawing room, where Monty is waiting for her. It’s the first time Clint has seen him since the ball, since almost killing him, and he looks sickly for it still, his face haggard, worn. He bolts to his feet, unsteady and with knocking knees and trembling hands, when his wife enters with Clint on her heel, clutching something in his hands.

‘I told them everything,’ he says, after kissing his wife’s cheeks and she’s asked after the boys, ‘it’s been a struggle. They want to kill him.’

He shoots a filthy look at Clint, who accepts it for what it is. He cannot blame the Major, after all; what he did to Laura was inexcusable. Clint very carefully keeps his gaze averted, looks to the décor of the room, its white panelling and its heavy curtains, its dark wooden writing desk and the wall-length bookcase rammed to bursting point. It’s a lovely room, the sort Laura would have been happy to spend time in. The guilt of it makes something rumble deep in his belly, and Falsworth looks at him for half a second before his wife is speaking and diverts his attention.

‘They’ll have to wait. Did you get it?’

Falsworth hands the bundle to his wife, and Clint draws a breath, can recognise the smell of it, the colour.

‘That’s Laura’s dress,’ he says, quiet, and the couple turn to him, frowning.

Mrs Falsworth has the dress in both hands, and she looks at it before returning her gaze to him.

‘It is. We want you to find her, Mister Barton.’

‘I don’t need that to find her,’ Clint assures her, and can hear the offence in his voice, ‘I’m not going to forget what she smells of. I can’t. It’s – I just won’t.’

But Mrs Falsworth shoves the dress into his hands, and he backs up towards a chair, falls into it, dress in his hands. Slowly, he lifts it to his face, breathes the smell of it in.

Clint sits there for almost ten minutes, clutching the blood-stiff tattered remnants of the dress to his face. Monty watches him and Heather vanishes, saying something about their son, and Clint thinks that it won’t matter where the boy is, not with how hot his blood is boiling.

They say Laura’s alive, and he's sure of it, able to smell her clinging to the furniture, changed a little with a – a difference in – not soap, her soap is still the same, but something else. The enchantment perhaps. But it’s still her honey and vanilla smell, still the iron of her pulse, and he breathes it desperately. It’s clouding him, he knows, filling him from the heart out, until his toes burn for the heat of it, molten iron burning in his veins.

The beads on her dress feel rough against his fingers, caked in blood and twisted on their strings.

'Major,' Clint murmurs eventually, when the ticking of the clock in the hall has driven him quite mad. 'Tell me something.'

'If it'll get you moving, I'll tell you anything.'

'Has she spoken of me? When she woke, did she speak of me?'

For a long minute, Monty doesn't reply. Steve returns from the kitchen with a plate piled high, Bucky close to his elbow. On seeing the hunter sitting there, Laura's dress still against his face, the sergeant flinches. But he takes a breath and sits on the end of the sofa closest to Clint, fists both hands in his breeches.

'She spoke of you remarkably fondly, considering what you - what happened.'

Bucky sniffs. Steve carefully keeps his mouth full. Heather returns, and takes a seat on the arm of her husband's chair.

'Where are the others?' she asks.

'Sleeping, I hope,' Monty says. 'We're going to have to be ready to move at a moment's notice.'

'Then the three of you should be resting too.'

All three shake their heads. Steve wordlessly hands Bucky a strawberry.

Clint turns his face into the dress, tunes out the sound of them muttering. After several more minutes, he leaps to his feet.

'Her bedroom. Show me.'

‘I’ll take him,’ Bucky says, and gets to his feet, even though Steve grabs his wrist.

Bucky leads him upstairs, silent as death, the clack of the plates making up his new, metal arm the only sound that Clint can bear to listen to. It's the middle of the day, but the house is silent, and Clint doesn't try to break it.

Laura permeates every inch of the room; her hairbrush here, with her hair tangled into the teeth, a dress there, crumpled where she threw it the prior morning. Clint, still clutching her dress, breathes in.

Bucky takes a step back. 'Barton.'

Clint exhales, and takes a slower breath through his mouth.

'She was taken,' he says, 'from this room. I don't recognise the smell, though. It's all over her bed; her kidnapper must have woken her in the night.'

'We know this,' Bucky snaps. 'Monty told us this. It isn't new.'

'It’s new to me,' Clint snaps in reply. 'She - she was on the floor. She was - she fought. She tried to escape. See here, these stains? She pulled her stitches trying to escape.'

'Sure she's not just bleeding?’

Clint gives him a withering look, quite sure that Bucky is doing it to be a pain. 'It's pus, Sergeant. Not blood. Her kidnapper, he - look - he dragged her to the window. Fucking hell, this room stinks of death. Who the fuck took her? I don't know anyone who - not even Wade smells this bad.'

'Wade?'

'Wade Wilson. He'll be listening. He's always listening to what I'm saying, fucking sneak. I need to go outside. She was taken outside.'

'There was a horse,' Monty says, when Clint returns to the drawing room, and asks about it, 'at least, I think it was a horse. Could have been a monster for all I could see.'

'A spell,' Steve grunts. 'Something to avert the eye?'

'No,' Clint says, 'I don't think so. Death doesn't ride a horse.'

At least, he's fairly certain.

Monty leads him to the stables, and Clint climbs onto the wall, perching there and staring. To the boys, he looks frustrated, tired, fed up. But Clint is looking and listening, giving, just a little, to the dragon. And the dragon seems to understand, seems to appreciate what Clint is asking, and gives a little in return. His senses sharpen, vision tunnelling and ears burning, but there’s no ache of scales under his skin. At least, no more than usual.

'The horse went into the woods at a full gallop. It was tethered close to Laura's window; he must have jumped onto the wall from the window, down onto the horse and taken off. That takes some serious skill; we're dealing with a real threat here. Someone who’s done this before.'

'There are no bounties,' Steve says, 'Fury would know if there were any threats. There haven’t even been connected kidnappings.'

Clint frowns, and continues to stare at the path the horse has trodden. He can smell the kidnapper here too, blood and ash and something he thinks he should know, like the smell of tanning wax or goose down.

Eventually, he cracks his neck and pulls the cloak off, drops it back inside the confines of the wall.

‘I’m going after her,’ he says, and stands straight, balanced on top of the wall, even though his feet are wider than the bricks, and he feels naked without the weight of his quiver on his back, without his bow in his hand.

He hasn’t felt right without Laura’s favour, without the fading smell of her on her broken pendant; he’d searched, in the few days he’d been sober enough to see straight but drunk enough to think it a good idea, for another broken pendant, but there hadn’t been one in the woods, and he hadn’t dared get in sight of the castle to sneak into her chambers to break one and steal it. He rubs his wrists, and cracks his neck.

‘Can you track them that far? They’ve got almost a day on you.’

‘I can outrun most horses, and almost all the deer in the forest,’ Clint tells him, and touches his belly. The goring had healed over by morning, and his intestines were still where they were supposed to be, not even a bruise on him, but it had been the worst he’d been injured in months. ‘I can catch them up.’

Steve bares his teeth for a moment.

‘Barton.’

Clint turns back, and in another universe, it might have looked heroic, but he just looks tired, foul-tempered.

‘Don’t come back if you don’t find her.’

‘I’ll die before I fail.’

And with that, he’s jumping down from the wall, and hits the ground running.

* * *

They ride for three days without stopping for longer than an hour to let the horse rest. Laura snarls through the sack over her head that Barton is going to kill the horse, and Barton tells her that there are plenty of horses, and he doesn’t need to spare its life. She kicks him for it, and calls him every name she can think to remember.

He doesn’t seem to take any notice, throwing her back over the horse and setting off again.

From the stuffiness of his voice, she’s fairly certain she broke his nose by kicking him. Good.

‘Where are you taking me?’ Laura asks, because Barton is now letting her ride upright, though she still has the sack over her head and still has her hands bound behind her back. He had to rebind them on the second morning to take the rope up to her elbows, because she almost managed to wriggle free. ‘Where are we going?’

It’s not the first time she’s asked if over the last few days, but every time so far, she’s gone ignored.

‘To someone very eager to meet you,’ Barton replies. ‘My name’s Barney, by the way. Barney Barton.’

‘Barney Barton.’

Names have power, and Laura will keep the name close to her chest. She will tell Clint, when he comes for her. She will tell him, and he will know, she thinks. Barton is a Cursed name. No one calls themselves Barton freely.

‘You’re Cursed, aren’t you?’ she asks, when they stop to water the horse. She can hear Barton taking a piss.

‘What gave it away?’

‘Your eyes. They’re Cursed blue. The same blue as – ‘

‘As Clint? Don’t worry, I know all about my baby brother. This is for his benefit.’

‘Baby brother? Benefit? How is this for his benefit, he believes me to be dead by his hand!’

The sound of pissing stops, and she tells Barton to not dare touch her until he’s washed his hands.

‘God only knows where you’ve been, and even then, I don’t think God wishes to know the truth of it.’

Barton laughs, but makes a production of audibly washing his hands.

‘I’m even using that soap you like, the honey and vanilla one from the Queen’s Village. You know, there’s a nice one in Bearwood, not far from your cousin’s place? It’s got strawberries and apple blossom in it, very nice.’

When he comes back, she can smell it on his hands.

‘And to answer your squawking, he won’t believe you dead soon. Your screaming for him will have your cousins seeking him out, and they’ll tell him the truth, not that the kingdom isn’t already celebrating your survival, even if it’s by Fair means.’

Laura doesn’t ask any more questions, because Barton has already answered all the questions she could need to ask.

* * *

It takes Clint four days to catch up to the horse’s tracks; even if he can run faster than a horse, it’s only for a short while, and his reserves are not infinite. Tracking takes time, even with his eyes and his ears to follow the tracks and the faint panting of the horse as it gallops for longer than it should. Whoever has kidnapped the Princess is pushing the horse hard, and if it doesn’t die, it’ll never be right again.

Clint finds the end of the tracks – a real end, nowhere for the horse to go. The tracks just _end_ , as though the horse vanished from the ground. He spends two hours breathing and looking and listening and touching, trying to work out where Laura and the rider went. They cannot just disappear, that isn’t how it works.

Except it seems to have, because Laura is nowhere to be seen, and neither is the horse or its rider. Clint does his best to focus, but the panic is beginning to settle in his bones. He’s lost the tracks, and if he’s lost the tracks, he’s lost Laura.

He can’t bear the thought.

So he breathes, and he breathes some more, and the wind brings him a whisper of the ashen, bloody scent of her kidnapper. Like the bloodhound the Falsworths had been determined to make him, he latches onto it and takes off, following it through its growing strength for another two days until he comes across a village he doesn’t recognise. He’d thought he’d been in every village, but this is one he doesn’t know.

Even so.

It doesn’t matter, he’s going to find her kidnapper, and he’s going to smash the fucker’s face into the nearest hard surface and break it. He’s going to break the surface and the fucker’s face, and he’ll go from there. The anger is blinding, and he can’t afford to be angry, but all he can smell is the ash of the bastard’s corpse, and that won’t do. That won’t do at all.

So he follows his nose, tracks him down to an empty stable, and it’s the middle of the night, pitch-black but for the faint moonlight coming through the windows. Clint lifts his weight, grabs a burlap sack from off the top of a hay bale, and creeps closer until he can attack, pinning the bastard to the floor and dragging the sack over his head. They slap hands for a few minutes, determined as they are to fight the other off, but then Clint is victorious, and the fight is done.

Now, to get some answers.

* * *

While Clint is hunting down Laura and the kidnapper, the boys communicate with Fury and Natasha, and try to find her themselves. They don’t have much hope of it; York is a big kingdom, and the days are passing too quickly. Three have already gone by, and there is no sign of her.

Peggy appears in the drawing room on the second day, as the boys gather around the map spread across the coffee table, staring at the markers they’ve made.

‘Trust Barton,’ she says, by way of announcing her presence. ‘He’ll find Laura soon enough. Trust me; he can do well enough to find her.’

‘I can’t do that, Peg,’ Steve says, without looking up.

He hasn’t slept at all, and it’s beginning to show.

‘Steven.’

Turning to glance over his shoulder, he’s almost glaring.

‘Peggy,’ he says with a sigh. ‘I’m not trusting him as far as I can throw him. We have to be prepared for the possibility he fails, and what then? Leave Laura to die?’

He straightens then, shoulders back and chin up. Peggy eyes him, bored.

‘And what of you?’ he demands, with the offended tone of one only just realising something vital, ‘why can you not find her? She’s your Goddaughter; you should know where she is.’

‘Not when she’s been hidden behind Fair magic, I don’t.’

Peggy sounds as bored as she looks, disinterested in the argument, as though there is no argument to be had.

‘Peg,’ Bucky starts, and he twists his metal hand, still learning the limits of what Stark made for him. ‘Do you have _anything_ for us? Any information at all?’

She shakes her head, and goes to the table, fingers brushing over the map.

‘Nothing. I can see Clint, but I cannot see what he sees. He’s on the trail, that much I know. And he is not far from catching up. Another day at most. Laura is still there. I cannot see her, but I know her presence in this Realm.’

‘Then go get her back.’

‘I can’t,’ she says, and looks at Dugan as though he’s suggesting the impossible. To them, it seems very possible. ‘She’s under the cloak of another Curse, one I cannot interfere with. I cannot interfere without breaking the Fair Law.’

‘The Fair Law is bullshit,’ Steve snaps, and whirls away from the table, stomping to the window. ‘Peg, I just want her back, I hate this sitting around. I can’t do anything to help. I can’t even make her fucking bed, ‘cause God knows when she’ll be back to sleep in it.’

Peggy sighs, and drags her finger across the map to where she knows Clint currently is, sitting and breathing and struggling to pick up the trail.

‘I cannot interfere with another Fair One’s magic,’ she says, as though explaining it to a particularly obtuse child, ‘it is something not possible, not in either Realm. It has been banned by the Fair Law, because when we interfere, innocent people are claimed in the cross-fire. Do you know what happened to cause the ban, Steve? The Black Death. We killed _countless_ humans, countless innocent lives were lost because two Fair Ones could not see beyond their pettiness. We are _dangerous_. We cannot interfere, and I will not break the Fair Law to save her. I cannot.’

Steve breathes, and his hands fist, white-knuckled, at his side.

‘When I was seventeen,’ he says, ‘one of the – there was that Frankish assassin, do you remember, Buck? It was just after the Queen died, about four, five months, and Laura was trying so hard to keep a brave face, but this guy. He just appeared out of the woodwork, dressed like a servant, but he was so _rude_. He was vile, and he could do a Yorkish accent so well, but we knew. We could tell. No Yorkish servant would have bullied a ten-year-old girl.’

Dernier makes a low noise in his chest, something vicious and snarling that makes the boys look at him. There have been rumours of Frankia’s descent into revolution spreading across the kingdom. The wake of the Princess’ birthday had ignited the first flames, and the people were beginning to fight, stirring trouble in the noble’s towns, on the edges of the royal city.

‘He paid?’ he asks Bucky, who has retreated from the table to sit in one of the corner chairs, hands fisted against his thighs.

Bucky jerks his chin.

‘I fought him,’ Steve says, ‘tried to punch his lights out, and Laura was only fucking _ten_. She was ten, and she’d just lost her mother, and I was seven-fucking-teen and I was _helpless_. I couldn’t lay a hand on him. Bucky had to – Christ, when I got that last sickness, and Peg, you saved me, I swore. I swore Laura would _never_ be in danger again. I swore I would die before I let her lose so much as a strand of hair to anyone seeking to do her harm.’

Bucky moves before anyone can reply, shoving Steve’s arm out of the way to tangle them together. They say nothing, and after a minute, the others move to close ranks, pressing tight to Steve, and to Bucky, and Peggy listens to the map with one ear, to the rattle of the boys’ hearts with the other.

‘What happened?’ Monty asks, and tugs on Steve’s ear, because Steve has been caving in on himself for the last ten minutes, and they hadn’t really finished the story.

‘I dragged him into the dungeons,’ Bucky rasps; he hasn’t sounded right since Erskine finished stitching his arm up. ‘And threw him in a cell, and told Fury to never let him see the light of day.’

‘He didn’t,’ Steve adds, ‘he was one of the bodies we fished out the fire.’

Dernier laughs, and the sound makes them all fall silent. Even Peggy raises her eyes to look at him.

In the end, nobody says anything.

* * *

Clint ties the fucker to a chair, and listens to him breathe for a few minutes as he forces himself to calm down. He will do nobody any favours if he loses control.

He will lose Laura forever if he doesn’t get the answers he needs.

So he breathes until his heart beats a steady drum.

And then he rips the bag from his captive’s head.

* * *

Laura wakes, briefly. She doesn’t remember falling asleep, but she must have fallen asleep somehow. Strange, how that works. It’s blurry for a moment, hazy.

And then her vision sharpens, shows her a worried face, one she doesn’t know; a broken nose, knotted brow, close-cropped hair, black as night. She tries to watch the eyes flickering over her face, but she can’t keep up, and lets her eyes fall shut again.

‘She’s alive,’ someone hollers, and she feels something tight grip her shoulder, but then it’s gone, and she slips under.

* * *

It's like looking at murky water, at his reflection warping with the shape of the ripples in the surface. Barney is older, craggier, but they have the same blue eyes, the same down turned mouth. Barney's ears are bigger, his nose longer, but their jaws are the same square, their hair the same sandy tone, although Barney is red to Clint's brown.

Still clutching the burlap sack in his hand, Clint curls his free fist and does his damnedest to knock his brother's teeth out with one swing. He doesn't manage it, but Barney is spitting blood, so that's something.

It's a sharp, stabbing realisation as Clint stands there watching his brother watching him. Three hundred years away from him and not a second spent close enough to get even a whiff of him on the air. Clint breathes him in now, learns the smell of him.

'I don't care what you did,' Clint tells him, because Clint doesn't care. Barney is good as dead, by the looks of him, and Clint is as far from emotionally invested in what his brother had done to be sat here three hundred years later as he can be.

'Clint,' Barney starts and Clint has to step away before he rips his brother's tongue out.

The dragon is burning beneath his skin, clawing at his insides and trying to rip itself free, trying to take over and finish what Clint so desperately wants to start.

'Where is she?' Clint asks. 'What did you do with the girl?'

'Which girl? They aren't hard to come by.'

 _'Charles_ ,' Clint snarls and Barney flinches.

'Fine,' he says. 'Fine. No jokes about girls. The girl's gone. I handed her over. Laura's gone, Clint.'

'Don't say her name again. I hear it out of your mouth one more time, I'll rip your fucking tongue out.'

Barney snorts, but nods, and something sad crosses his face, sadder than just the realisation of what he did.

'I made a deal,' he says. 'I'd failed you once, and I - I wasn't there when she got kidnapped, and I'm sorry, I am. If I'd been there I'd have - I'd have done something. I'd have helped you. Zemo had -'

Clint rounds on him, eyes shining so blue.

'Zemo?' he demands. 'You fucking - Zemo, Barney? Fucking hell, no wonder you look like shit. Zemo, _Jesus fucking Christ_!'

Zemo had been mad long before Clint was old enough to understand what madness was. He’d been well-known as a prime example of Bavarian nobility for as long as Clint could remember, and the kindest thing for him would be for him to be dead. It’s been over three centuries, the least Barney could have done was kill him in his bed. But Clint is not the village idiot; Barney would have been involved with the Baron in some way that prevented him killing him. Probably had Zemo dabble in that bullshit he’d been hearing about since before the ball, rumours of Cursed twins who weren’t _really_ Cursed, but had all the markings of it. Some Baron from Bavaria, the rumours had said, making science out of Fair magic.

Fucking ridiculous.

'Zemo didn't do this. L - Lo - _he_ did.'

Clint goes numb and the dragon’s screech rattles his bones, burns him from the inside out. He can't breathe, can't see, and he can barely hear his brother talking over the blood in his ears.

Barney watches him pacing, looking sad and lost and like hell had been clawing at the shadows of his face since they last saw each other, and Clint snarls. He has no right to look sad, to look sorry for himself. It doesn't stop him from giving it a good go, though, and it only pisses Clint off more.

'How dare you?' he snarls. 'Stop looking at me like that. You son of a bitch, _how dare you_?'

Barney swallows thickly. 'Clint. Baby brother.'

'You're no brother of mine,' Clint spits. 'You are no fucking brother of mine.'

'Listen to me,' Barney barks, because this is going nowhere fast, and he's aware of how little time he has to make Clint understand. 'Listen to what I'm saying, and not what you're hearing. The girl is gone. I handed her over to - to - to him. You know who. I had no choice. You know what he does, you've had it done to you.'

Clint has had it. He knows.

'I'd have never done it,' he says, 'I'd have died first.'

They both know it doesn't work like that.

'Of course you would have. You love her. True Love probably, you don't know any other way do you? Can't love anything without loving it True.’

‘Shut up.’

‘I mean, I get it, I do, hurts less, don’t it? When it falls apart. At least you gave your all, you know? You tried, and you tried your damnedest. Don’t matter if the love don’t work, ‘cause you tried.’

‘Barney.’

‘Better than doing it half-assed. Can’t get haunted by the “what if” then, ‘cause you did your best. Not your fault. Makes you blameless then, eh? And it’s – it’s more than what our father did.’

‘ _Shut up_!’

The words come out too loud and too hard, and both brothers freeze, stare at each other, eyes glowing white for the blue in them, Barney’s mouth still open with half-formed words, and Clint’s teeth bared in a fanged, bleeding snarl. He’s warping with scales and bones and horns, but not enough to break the skin.

Barney lowers his gaze first, looking away from his brother, towards his scabbed, bloody knees, breathes hard through his nose.

‘Clint,’ he says, and Clint strides to the wall, close enough that his toes kick against the wall, and he stares at the faded plaster.

‘Clint,’ Barney repeats, louder. His tongue sounds like it’s thick, like it’s gluing to the roof of his mouth, and he swallows. ‘Listen. The girl – this was what I had to do, you understand? It’s for _you_ , for the both of you. Listen, Clint. Listen to me. We can’t keep on like this. We can’t.’

‘We?’ Clint squawks. ‘We? There is no “we,” Barney. There’s no “us,” not any more. How can it be “we” anymore? It ain’t “we.” It can’t be. You _left_ me! You left me for dead, left me to go and save her and bring her home and fight the fucking dragon, and she fucking _died_ , Barney! She died, because I needed you and you weren’t there for me, and now you’re here, alive and well, three fucking hundred years later!’

And there it is.

Barney doesn’t reply; what can he say?

‘You got yourself Cur – like – like this to stay with me?’ Clint demands as he whirls back to glare at his brother, choking on his tongue and the spell on the words. ‘You fucking – you didn’t come and find me, after you did this to yourself? You didn’t think that maybe I might have needed you? There was a fucking _war_ , Barney! There was a fucking war to try and kill me, and so many fucking dragons, so many people like me, they fucking _died_! They died because of what I did! And you didn’t think to come and find me? Brothers, ha!’

Barney chews his lip.

‘Clint,’ he says, but there are only so many times he can apologise, and only so many times he can say his brother’s name before both lose all meaning.

Clint wheels back to kick the wall, putting his foot through the plaster and caving a hole in the brick beneath. After standing there for long enough that Barney almost starts to laugh, because look at them, look at the pair of them now, Clint turns back, his face grim.

‘Tell me where he is,’ he says, and there isn’t a single shade of blue in his eyes. They’re almost _purple_ now. ‘Tell me where I can find him.’

Barney tries to speak, by the looks of him, but his tongue is sticking the way Clint’s does. Bound by the Curse.

Fine, then.

‘I’ll find him,’ Clint snarls, and knows that he’s not looking at his brother’s eyes as he ducks down to meet his gaze on the level, knows that he’s looking at _him_. ‘I’ll find him, and I’ll get her back, and I’ll do what I didn’t do the first time.’

Barney smiles, like it’s not really him smiling.

‘I know you will,’ he says, and Clint nods, bangs their foreheads together before dragging the burlap sack back over his brother’s head and sweeping from the room.

First things first; getting back to Laura’s boys.

* * *

It goes like this for another two days; passing information between the boys, between the castle, between Peggy, gaining little but at least they’re losing nothing. Natasha appears on the third morning, hair braided and trousers tight, and she looks pissed. She talks for the day about the hag, about how the trail had gone cold, and there’s no sign the hag ever _existed_. She’s never been more cross in her life, from what the boys can tell, and Steve grumbles about it for most of the evening. They’ve taken up camping in the drawing room, watching Peggy’s enchantment light up the map, showing where Clint is running. It begins to fade the closer the hunter gets, or so Peggy says.

‘Clint has picked up the trail of the kidnapper,’ she says, out of the blue on the fourth evening.

Bucky has drifted off in the corner-most armchair, half-in Steve’s lap, half-wedged into the corner of the chair, and Steve is absent-mindedly massaging his left shoulder with one hand, reading a History of York with the other. Monty, Heather and Tommy are curled into the other armchair, the father and son dozing, Heather watching them with fondness written all over her face, the hand not supporting her son on her belly. The other boys are sprawled across the sofa and the floor, entertaining themselves, but the past days have been hard. There’s little for them to do, even with how hard they’ve been working at getting information; this is the first time since that second morning that they’ve all been in the same room.

Immediately, they’re awake and mostly on their feet.

‘He’s almost caught him. It’s getting foggy; I won’t be able to see him now until he leaves the vicinity.’

‘How can you see him?’ Gabe asks, peeling away from his book and crossing to her, looking interestedly at the map where her fingers are leaving glowing fire. ‘He’s under another’s Curse, right? You didn’t Curse him?’

‘I didn’t Curse him, no. He was – I knew him back when Laura – Princess Faulkner was still alive.’

‘These two Lauras are very confusing!’ Heather chuckles, but it falls flat; neither of the two Princesses are a laughing matter. More seriously now, she says, ‘you knew her, though? Princess Faulkner?’

‘She was my first charge as Godmother,’ Peggy says, ‘I had just gained my title, and I was sent to do my duty. When she met her – True Love – I was, how to say, helpless, to interfere? I tried to give her the best chance to have her True Love as I could, but I didn’t – I was at least partially responsible for what happened.’

They say nothing.

Peggy sighs, and rubs the back of her neck with one hand. Gabe touches her other fingers.

‘When Clint was Cursed, I did what I could to protect him.’

‘Then is he Laura’s – our Laura’s – True Love?’ Bucky asks.

‘Yes,’ she says, ‘I believe so. I believe – our Laura reminds me very much of Lady Faulkner.’

They mull over that for several long minutes, standing in silence with their heads bowed. Despite the time of year, despite the heat of the summer sticking their shirts to their backs, it feels cold, empty. After some time has passed, Peggy startles.

‘He’s found him,’ she says, and the room gains about four degrees. ‘He’s on his way back.’

‘It’s been four days,’ Dugan reminds her. ‘It’s going to take him four days to get back.’

‘No,’ she says, ‘no, I can help with that. He’ll be back by sun-up.’

‘What?’ Jim snorts. ‘You gonna get him a magic carpet to fly him back?’

‘Something like that,’ she says, ‘I’m going to petition the forest spirits to give him a ride.’

And with that, she’s gone.

Bucky tries his best, but he snorts with laughter. Steve gives him a withering look, but he’s too taken by Peggy’s choice of words to not laugh. Someone has to, after all.

They stand there for maybe a minute, and then she’s strolling through the door like she merely went to the restroom.

‘They’ll bring him as far as Bearwood,’ she says.

Monty nods. ‘I’ll ride out and meet him,’ he says, ‘it’s only a few minutes on a horse, it’ll be good practice. And if we have to ride out to rescue her, I’d better be used to riding again.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Bucky says, ‘I need to adjust to riding with one hand.’

Steve opens his mouth, but it’s Bucky’s turn to give him a withering look, and Steve clacks his jaws shut.

‘Alright,’ Steve says eventually, because Monty and Bucky are already on their feet, and they’re stretching out like they’re about to fight half the Queen’s Village tavern.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

He’s sure it won’t be the last, either.

‘Alright,’ he repeats. ‘Say you go and meet him, and bring him back here, what then? He has to know where the Princess is.’

‘I cannot say,’ Peggy tells him, honest. ‘But he will have a solution.’

‘He’d best,’ Steve grunts, and turns back to the window.

* * *

Clint is dropped at the side of the road leading into Bearwood. The sun is just coming up, and he feels cold for the heat in those early rays. The Curse is boiling beneath his skin, just a little more than normal, burning at his bones, like the bastard is pissed about something. He’s usually pissed at something, but this is the first time since Clint managed to escape the war unscathed but for a long-faded scar on his back, only visible once the broken scales on his shoulder break through his skin that the bastard’s taken it out on his Cursed Man.

Breathing a deep breath, Clint makes for the inn. Peggy had whispered, through a hawk that settled on his shoulder and brushed its head, fond and familiar and as static as Peggy’s fingers, that the Major and Barnes would be waiting for him. Clint has no right to use Barnes’ name now, after what he did, but calling him Sergeant is so beneath what the man is worth. He is a thousand of the sergeants Clint has known over the centuries. He’s a thousand of some of the captains, some of the majors, too.

Something has upset the monster, and Clint doesn’t like to wonder as to what. He’s long passed the point of caring what the bastard does. It’s going to end up poorly for him either which way, so he might as well not bother caring.

Still, it’s nice to know he’s pissed, because then Clint can get the fuck out of the towns.

Not that he has much choice; he can see the Major and Barnes waiting for him.

‘Hello, fellas,’ he greets as he approaches.

From the far end of the street, so they have time to adjust, to decide what they’re going to do.

Still astride their horses, they look at each other, and then shrug. There’s a third horse between them, dark brown with white spots, and a well-worn saddle.

‘Barton,’ Barnes greets. He looks like shit, but Clint can’t expect anything less.

‘You’re to ride back with us,’ the Major says, and throws the reins to Clint, who catches them easily. ‘I hope you have good news.’

‘I have good news,’ Clint says as he mounts, ‘after a fashion.’

‘I _hate_ it when people do that,’ Barnes moans as they turn their horses to head back to the estate. ‘You always have to add some kind of bullshit to the end of it, just to lower the mood.’

‘I can’t lie,’ Clint sniffs, ‘you know as well as I do that there isn’t any way for this to end well. I have been running like hell for four days. Let’s wait until we’re back at the manor before I tell you.’

But as they ride, Clint knows that Steve is not going to be happy with what he has to say for himself.

Despite them all being together again, despite there not being a member missing from their number, the Queen’s Guard look incomplete, wrong. There’s something off-putting about them sitting in silence in the drawing room, but Clint squares his shoulders. He could kill the lot if he lost control now, if he let himself breathe too deep for just a few seconds, the Falsworth estate would be no more.

‘This feels wrong,’ Dugan murmurs, and he clearly doesn’t realise Clint is just outside the door, where he’s been for the past five minutes. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this here.’

‘He didn’t torture the man,’ Monty assures him, as Heather potters around collecting their mugs. ‘He just got the information we need, hopefully. He’s not a complete loss, you know. Have some faith. Laura trusts him.’

‘And look where that trust got her,’ Steve says, shoving to his feet despite Bucky reaching for his hand to drag him back. He goes to the fireplace, unlit and with no wood to light, because it’s August, and there isn’t one of them not damp with sweat already. A picture of a bird Tommy drew is dangling from a string stuck to the brickwork instead, and it sways with the breeze Steve brings with him.

‘Steve,’ Gabe starts, but Steve just holds onto the mantel and bows his head and doesn’t make a sound.

The mantel creaks, and Monty clears his throat.

‘Please don’t destroy my house.’

Steve lets go of the mantel and sighs heavily.

‘Monty,’ he says, ‘all of you. Listen. We can’t trust him as far as we can throw him.’

Clint takes a breath and shoves the door open.

‘You’re going to have to trust me,’ he says, ‘Barney’s not talking. I won’t – I can’t make him speak, he’s been – he’s the – the same as me.’

‘Same as – you mean – Cursed?’ Gabe asks, and Clint nods.

‘Same as me. He can’t speak any more than I can. There’s no way to get past it. There just isn’t.’

‘So you know nothing?’ Steve asks.

Nope, Clint thinks. Definitely not impressed.

‘I don’t know nothing,’ Clint says, and clenches his fists. ‘I know that _he_ has her. I can’t – I can’t say his name. The – you know – it stops me. But he has her.’

Peggy is frowning.

‘Who gave him to her?’ she asks.

‘My brother,’ he says, and grits his fangs. ‘Laura’s been taken by my brother, and I don’t know where, but I have a few ideas of where to start looking.’

They spend the evening planning their search; Clint points out all the likely places on the map, and Peggy marks them with a fingertip.

But they’re saved, in the middle of the night, barely an hour after Steve, the last to go, has fallen asleep, by a pounding of hooves on the path leading to the door. Clint, asleep in a chair in the drawing room, bolts upright, and goes to open it, out of curiosity.

That fierce redheaded maid of Laura’s leaps from the back of her horse and shoves Clint out of the way of the door, marching inside like she owns the place. Her hair is wild, curling in wayward springs away from her face, and her clothes are travel-dusty and well-worn. She still looks mannish with her wide step and her trousers and her thrown-back shoulders, but there is something girlish in her wild expression, something young and breakable, and Clint has never seen someone look like that before.

‘Boys!’ she howls, and they’re at the doors and on the stairs in seconds.

‘Nat?’ Steve asks, coming to grab her arms, brow etched with worry. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

‘The castle,’ she says, hurried, something like _fear_ in her eyes, wild and green like an overgrown forest, ‘the whole thing’s gone under a spell. Everything’s wrong, off. Fury’s lot are getting as many people out as they can, but it’s looking like we’re going to lose a lot of our staff to the spell.’

‘What kind of spell?’ Clint demands, and Natasha looks at him.

‘I’d say a Curse,’ she says, meeting his gaze levelly. She must know that he knows what she is, Clint reasons, and she’s straightening her spine minutely, standing taller. ‘I’d say that your – _friend_ – has made his return.’

‘Return?’ Bucky asks.

‘The monster Laura’s had nightmares about, a blue-skinned, horned, red-eyed monster. That’s what Cursed you, isn’t it?’

Clint cannot nod, his spine is locking in place, but his cast-down eyes tell the story they need.

‘If I had to put money on it, and why would I do that when I know you’re all poor, I’d say that he’s making a show of it. Whatever he’s doing, he wants you all to see it.’

Clint knows exactly what he’s doing.

‘He’s taken Laura there,’ he says, ‘Laura’s in the castle.’

‘Then we go to the castle,’ Steve says, like it’s obvious. It is obvious. Clint is already halfway back to the door. ‘Queen’s Guard, be ready to move in ten minutes!’

They obligingly throw themselves into motion.

* * *

Laura wakes cold as ice, teeth chattering and every extremity burning and itching. Her mouth is salty, dry and rough and tongue thick with the cold, and she chokes on the dry rasp of her breath, lungs squeezed tight.

'Ah,' says a silk voice from somewhere not too far away. 'There you are. Hello, Princess, I’ve been waiting.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who's concerned about laura's safety this time, i promise it's a fun game to play and not painful at all!!!! (christine does not get to play this game because christine already knows)  
> oh man we're getting to the last stages with some shoddy world-building lets goooooo!!!!


	10. The Castle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and the boys make for the castle, and an unlikely friend tries to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for blood and character death

Laura shoves her arms under her, pushes herself upright, at least as much as she can manage, and her back hits something that makes her cry out, shrink away from the burning chill of it.

'Now, now. Don't be frightened, Princess; you'll waste your energy. No one can hear you, and no one will be here to rescue you. Least of all that miserable peasant Barton.'

'Go suck a cock,' she spits, and hears hands clap, an enthusiastic bark of laughter. The venom of the words – the words themselves – surprise her, and she’s not sure where they’ve come from.

'You met the corpse they keep fishing out of ponds! You're in for a treat, then; that maggot won't come save you either.'

'Of course he won't, you blithering idiot,' Laura snorts, and ducks her head to run her shivering hands over it. 'He doesn't have any reason to save me.'

Why would he, after all? He called Clint his best friend, sure, but she had encountered him once in the waking world, if it could be called an encounter, and had spoken to him in a foggy dream that slips through her fingers more and more with every moment that passes until now, curled into a ball on the floor, surrounded by ice, she isn’t so sure she dreamt of Mister Wilson at all.

It would be a tall order to expect him to come rescue her for little more than to open a debt with Clint.

The ice around her crunches and suddenly, she's being lifted, long fingers tight around her wrists and ankles and neck, holding her steady. She glares, as best she can, and the monster glares back.

'You keep causing me grief, Princess. So much of the grief I have to suffer is because of you.'

'Afraid I'll break your curse?' she asks. 'Afraid I'll ruin your schemes? What are they, may I ask? I simply cannot stop you if I don't know what it is you plan to do.'

The monster opens his mouth, and Laura presses into the tension around her neck, urging him to go on.

Then he remembers himself and snarls at her.

'You must think I'm stupid,' he says.

‘A little,’ she sniffs, and looks around the room.

There is no sign of Barney Barton, but a series of thugs are surrounding the monster, blank-eyed and with the chill of black veins spreading like tears down their faces. Her gaze settles on one; he’s particularly thuggish, with a nose broken both ways half a dozen times and dark hair cropped too close to his scalp to be fashionable, standing to attention nice and neat. A soldier once, she supposes, and she’s seen the parades the castle guard do. But there is something about his face that she recognises, she’s sure of it. His ears, perhaps. No one would forget those ears.

Feeling her gaze, he meets her eyes, and winks.

It’s barely a wink at all, and she’s so used to the lewd nature of the prisoners, and to Bucky’s over-exaggerated flirtations that she ignores it.

The monster doesn’t say another word; while she’s been tuned out for that half-minute of looking over his goons, he’d worked himself up into a state, and tightens the grip of the ice about her throat until she’s choking for it. When he releases her, dropping her hard onto the icy floor with a loud bang that she’s sure isn’t the crack of her bones, he has her escorted out of the icy cavern he’s currently got her in. Without missing a beat, the thug that winked steps forward, alongside one she doesn’t recognise and whose veins are far blacker, eyes far blanker, and they grab her arms.

‘I know you,’ she rasps to the thug as he drags her down a flight of stairs. He’s nice enough to grip by her armpit so he can lift her down the steps instead of breaking her ankles, and she twists her arm to grab hold of his elbow to better support herself.

He doesn’t reply. She glances at the other thug, walking with regimented steps, and supposes he can’t.

‘You were in the dungeon. You must have done something terrible to end up in the castle. But – you survived Clint escaping, then? If you’re here and not in a grave. You survived the fire.’

The thug inhales sharply through his nose, and Laura watches his profile for a few moments, before dropping her head to the side, temple bumping against his bicep.

‘I don’t believe Clint did it deliberately.’

‘Shut up,’ the thug says, before she can go any further, and the other one pulls open a door. They shove her in. ‘Be quiet.’

Laura stumbles over her feet, tripping in the hem of her nightgown, and she whirls, fists clenched and cheeks red.

‘I will not!’

He comes to the door before they shut it and lock her inside. The room, like the corridor, like the stairs, like the rest, is made of ice, and her breath is fogging, quick, desperate little puffs of air as her lungs struggle to acclimatise. His fogs too, and they stare at each other.

‘Be quiet, Princess,’ he warns, and there is something in his eyes. ‘Play your role, damsel.’

Laura has never once considered herself a damsel in distress, a heroine waiting to be rescued by her prince. But she understands.

‘He won’t come,’ she says, ‘he told me, if I ever got myself into danger, to not expect him. He won’t be coming.’

She says it loud enough that the other thug can hear; undoubtedly, he’ll report back. Laura breathes another rattling breath, and the thug smiles. He almost looks nice.

Then he slams the door and it disappears.

Laura wraps her arms around herself, and takes a look around the room, pacing to try and keep some warmth in her limbs. Everything is made of ice, or at least, looks to be made of ice, but it doesn’t take her long to recognise the furniture, the posts of the bed, the shape of the dresser, the curl of the handle on the balcony doors.

‘I’m in the castle,’ she whispers to herself, and looks back to where the doors had once been, mouthing the words again.

* * *

Clint wants to go to the cottage before they make for the castle.

'My bow is there,' he says, 'and my knives. I want to be ready.'

'We have bows,' Monty says, 'for when Laura wants to practice her archery.'

'We have her equipment,' Heather adds, 'I found it on her bed, after - well. After. And I snuck it out, with us, in case she wanted to practice when she woke.’

Clint whirls. 'Where?'

The quiver will be the only usable part for him – the arm guard and glove will be far too small for his fingers and forearm – but he'll take them, and tucks them into the pouch on his belt.

'Roses?' Bucky asks, when he sees the pieces, and Clint breathes through his mouth.

Laura cares about Bucky, he reminds himself. She cares far too much about him. He has to live through this.

'I thought they might suit her.'

He throws the quiver over his shoulder, empty as it is, and straps it into place. It barely fits over his chest, and he pops one buckle when he swings onto his horse.

'I'll go with him,' Steve says to the Queen's Guard. 'You get ready to ride as soon as we're back.'

The ride doesn't take long; Clint suspects Peggy has waved her fingers at the horses.

As soon as they're in sight of the cottage, Clint is dismounting, and Steve reins the horse in.

'That's - that's a cottage.'

Clint smiles, and he looks old, almost.

'I thought so,' he says, and opens the door.

Wade is waiting for him.

'You found Barney, then.'

'If you knew my brother - ' But Clint cuts himself off, and scowls. 'Fuck off, Wade.'

'I'm here to offer my services. You're going to fight Big Blue, right? I can help. You'll need all the Immortals you can get. You'll be glad to know Frank's with her.'

Clint frowns. 'Who the fuck is Frank?'

'He's that monster mash that keeps trailing Miss Page around?'

Clint wrinkles his nose, curls his lip. 'What?' he asks, and shakes his head. 'Wade, if you're going to be an asshole, just get out of my way and do it elsewhere, I don't have time for this.'

He doesn’t kick Wade’s feet off the table, because he doesn’t have to; he just walks straight through them, dragging the cloaked man’s legs with him, and heads to the far corner of the cottage. He didn’t have to walk through Wade; there was plenty of space. But Wade gets it.

‘Listen,’ he says, seriously, and when he tilts his head, the shine of his eyes vanishes with the moonlight. ‘There’s more coming than just Big Blue and his little party of thugs. Thank whoever Blessed Frank that he’s got that Blessing – I need to find out who that was, it’s hard to hear him. He’s static, and when he’s not static, he’s just – he thinks too much about too little, and too little about too much. It’s a jumble, that boy’s head.’

Steve steps into the cottage, having lingered in the doorway, open-mouthed.

‘Captain Rogers,’ he introduces himself, and Wade nods.

‘I know,’ he replies, but he’s still looking at Clint. ‘Wade Wilson. I’m the Body in the Pond. And I’ll tell you what, Clint, old buddy, old pal, _your_ head is getting - ’

Steve stares at him, and then at Clint, and then he’s interrupting Wade mid-sentence. ‘Bucky mentioned that you mentioned him. Said he was always listening.’

‘And I was!’ Wade exclaims. ‘I was listening, actually, Barton. You’re a little shit, you know that? I am not a sneak, you should know better.’

Clint rolls his eyes, and yanks the cupboard at the far side of the fireplace open, pulling out his bow and a quiver of arrows, transferring them with the practice of centuries into Laura’s quiver, still strapped ill-fittingly to his back. He pulls on a glove and straps his arm-guard into place, and then he lingers for a second.

‘What am I walking into?’ he asks, and turns back to look at Wade, blue eyes meeting white.

Wade smiles, but it’s only Clint’s exposure to him that lets him know that the older Cursed man is smiling, what with the mask hiding his face and all.

‘He’s summoning monsters to fight for him,’ Wade says, and gets to his feet with a groan, ‘but I’m not going to waste time explaining it now when I’ll have to explain it again when we get back to the Major’s house. Let’s just go already.’

* * *

‘Where is it?’ Laura demands of the room, but the room has no answers for her.

She has no idea how long she’s been here, how long she’s been searching the room for her things, but she hasn’t given up yet. All of the drawers and doors in her room open, and all of the things are still there, made of the finest ice, perfect and clear and no matter how she pushes and pulls and kicks and screams, it won’t break. But she won’t give up searching.

‘Give it to me!’ she screeches, but it just echoes, bouncing off the ice and back to her, banshee-shrill.

‘Give what to you?’

She whirls; the thug from before.

‘You!’ she demands, and storms to him.

He holds his hands up, as though genuinely threatened by her, but there’s something almost a smile on his lips.

‘I have archery equipment in this room somewhere,’ she tells him in a hush, whispering as under her breath as she can. ‘It is here, I am _sure_ of it. But I cannot find it. Do you – this is the Fair Realm, isn’t it? The Other World.’

‘No, Princess,’ he says, serious, and his eyes are sad. ‘No, this is our realm, as best I can tell. If we’re in the Fair Realm, he’s stronger than I thought him.’

Laura bites her lip, blue with the cold.

‘Here,’ the man says, and extends a heavy travelling coat. It smells of iron and sweat, and she wonders where he got it, but pulls it on eagerly enough; it’s still warm from a body. ‘Can’t have you freezing to death.’

Laura pulls the coat as tight about her as she can, hiding her blue fingertips in her armpits.

‘Thank you,’ she says, ‘have you a name? If I am ever – if this ever ends, I’ll have you spared your sentence.’

‘Frank Castle, ma’am,’ he says, and she laughs.

‘Castle? What a name to have, when you lived in the dungeon. Well, Mister Castle, I’ll have you pardoned, if you’ll stay true to me until this is over. I have a plan.’

‘I’ll find the realm,’ he tells her, and that is as good as an oath.

After he’s gone, she looks at the coat in closer detail, and finds a bloody hole in the lower back.

She decides, after an hour’s nail-gnawing contemplation, to not be bothered by it.

* * *

Going back to Falsworth manor takes them out of their way, but Steve will not let Clint and Wade ride on ahead. Wade had thrown himself on the back of Clint’s horse, even though Clint is fairly certain Wade would be able to outrun a horse, and he stinks of stagnant water and iron against Clint’s neck. He focuses on that, because it’s something to focus on that isn’t what’s happening to Laura.

‘Is she safe?’ he whispers to Wade as they ride.

Wade nods. ‘She’s as safe as she can be. She isn’t going to die just yet. Frank’s heading to get her out now. He knows we’re coming.’

It’s enough to let Clint breathe for the rest of the ride back to the manor.

The boys are waiting for them, armed and dressed and astride their mounts already. Monty is the only one not on his horse, stood with his wife and son, and they wait patiently for him to murmur whatever it is he’s murmuring. He presses a kiss to Heather’s mouth, one to his son’s forehead, and then he’s turning to his horse. 

As they ride to the castle, Wade explains what he knows, what they’re to expect.

‘Big Blue’s got a whole race of monsters to fight for him!’ he calls, loud enough that they can hear him over the pounding of hooves.

Clint suspects that Wade could make himself heard without hollering, but he supposes he’s not in a position to argue.

‘We’ll have to fight through them to get into the castle. He’s frozen it over, taken it in the Fair Realm and brought it through into this one, made it all his. We’ll be in his domain.’

‘Fuck his domain,’ Dugan yells, ‘we’ll take the castle back.’

‘We’ll have to,’ Wade nods. ‘If we want Laura back. He’ll have her in the deepest part of _his_ castle, and I – Frank’s working on getting her out. He’ll bring her back into our castle.’

‘How do we tell the difference?’ Steve asks, and then, ‘who’s Frank?’

‘If it’s frozen, it’s his castle. If it’s on fire, it’s ours. And Frank – Frank Castle? You remember him? Bulky guy, grumpy face, murdered the fuckers who murdered his family and handed himself in?’

Steve knows who he means before he’s done talking, and he has a face like he’s trodden in a hole full of dog shit.

‘Oh,’ he says.

‘Laura’s safe with him,’ Wade assures him, and Clint snorts.

‘You mean he’s safe with Laura.’

It makes something twist in his belly, his chest, at the words, because they’re true, of course they’re true, but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t calm him down all the same. Laura is something else, something made of only the finest.

‘Breathe,’ Wade reminds him, and Clint takes a ragged breath.

‘So we’ve got an army to fight?’ Bucky asks, just for confirmation. At Wade’s nod, he adds, ‘what are the odds?’

‘Us, plus whoever Fury’s managed to round up. Maybe twenty guards are left, his five or so. The nine of us. Hundreds of the monsters and everyone Big Blue’s put under his spell.’

‘Where has he gotten them from?’ Jim asks, ‘these monsters?’

Wade shakes his head. ‘I’m not entirely certain,’ he admits, ‘somewhere in the Fair Realm. I can’t see it. I know it’s there, but it’s as though it’s behind a curtain. Banishes me any time I try to get close.’

 Clint frowns.

‘Do we have Peggy?’ he asks, ‘does Peg know?’

‘Peg knows. She’s trying to petition the Fair Folk to intervene. Don’t think it’ll work though.’

‘So we won’t rely on outside help,’ Steve says, ‘we’ll find Fury first. Get a plan made up, a strategy. Do we know what these monsters’ weaknesses are?’

Wade shakes his head, and his fingers dig tight enough into Clint’s ribs that he aches for it.

‘No. I’ve never seen something like them before.’

The boys nod, and they put their heads down, kick their horses into a full gallop. The castle is in sight already, towering ice and fire high above the treetops.

 _Hold on_ , Clint finds himself begging, _hold on, we’re coming_.

* * *

Laura doesn't know how long she waits between visits from Mister Castle. He brings her things like hot tea and biscuits and one time he brings her a blanket, and when she asks how he gets them when the brief peeks at other parts of the castle that she's gotten when the hidden door opens show her that the whole castle is ice now, he shrugs as though dumb.

He does, however, tell her that they are in the Fair Realm, that he investigated, and found that they are existing alongside the real castle. She could be in her bed, in _her_ bed, and the staff would never know.

She misses the warmth of Lucky’s fur under her fingertips, and brushes her hand along the indent in the ice where he sleeps.

Perhaps there are days, but she doesn't think so, so she spends the time prowling around the room, looking for weaknesses she can exploit.

Mister Castle assures her she can sleep, that she won't die or have anything taken from her, or given to her. But she adamantly refuses, even though Mister Castle nicely offers to stay with her, just to be sure.

This is not to say that Mister Castle is her only visitor – by no means is his battered mug the only face she sees during her internment. The blue-skinned monster comes to visit her sometimes, but it’s rare, and she’s usually done something to warrant a visit. Or something out there is happening to warrant a visit.

‘Is he coming?’ she asks the monster, and he doesn’t like that very much, freezes her in place until he decides he’s had enough of her silence, and lets her have her tongue back.

There are other goons too, but the visits are sparse, and time seems to be standing still. There is not even a shimmer in the ice to suggest time has passed, and yet, it stretches endlessly.

She wonders if she’s dying.

Is this what freezing to death feels like?

Opting not to think of it, she finds herself looking forward to visits from Mister Castle, if only because he brought her that blanket to wrap herself in, and she’d lost it, when the monster next visited, and he’d taken it and the coat. It left her back in her nightgown, teeth chattering and blue-fingered and black-toed, and Mister Castle does his best to bring her things to warm her through.

It makes her think she might be dying. The monster assures her, and Mister Castle has assured her beside, that she cannot die, but it still feels as though she is.

'Mister Castle,' she says once, as he goes to leave after bringing her tea. 'May I ask you a question?"

'You may. Might not answer it though.'

Laura eyes him, and watches the icy nothing behind him. Castle seems to be irritated, but it could just be his face, and he doesn't show any signs of moving.

'What did you do? To end up in the dungeon, I mean.'

'I,' Mister Castle begins and then pauses. 'You were only young, I doubt you remember the - civil unrest, in Lower Town. You're how old? Fifteen?'

'Twenty, Mister Castle.'

'And you've not been married off? Jesus.'

'And,' Laura cuts across him, louder than she needs to, 'I may not remember it personally, but I know what happened.'

Mister Castle smiles, and he almost looks young.

'The war - 'cause it was a war, ma'am, don't make the mistake of thinking it wasn't - it.'

The silence drags. Laura tries not to watch him, but she knows that look.

'It took your family,' she guesses.

She racks her brains, but she doesn't remember anyone being dragged into the dungeons after the unrest in Lower Town. It had been a year after the Queen died, and from what Heather had told her, for a time, Lower Town had been less safe than Lynne's Brook, a feat in and of itself. Lynne's Brook had not gained a reputation for nought, after all.

Still, she thinks. Still.

'Perhaps we shouldn't speak of it,' Laura offers.

'They killed my family, so I killed them, and handed myself in to the Queen's Guard.'

The words come out of Mister Castle's mouth so fast that they're both surprised. Then he flushes red with shame, and turns away.

'To Rumlow, or to Ste - to Captain Rogers?'

'The blond one. Real sense of justice. Didn't know what to do with himself when I handed myself over.'

Laura smiles privately, but Mister Castle looks at her with something fond.

'You like him?'

There's something in his tone, and Laura's smile slips into a frown.

'He's a dear friend,' she says, 'and I love him dearly, but I am not in love with him.'

Mister Castle grins at her, lopsided and with a sparkle in his eyes, and she is reminded so starkly of Clint, of his smile when he gave her the archery equipment, when she pulled her mouth from his and offered him herself, offered him all of her and all she could be. Her breath catches, her heart pulled in a thousand directions, and without warning, she bursts into tears.

Mister Castle pats her shoulder. Laura howls, and turns away to do her best to upend the dresser, but her fingers are purple with the cold, and she can't get the grip.

'Here.'

Mister Castle stands at her side and pulls. There is a strength in him Laura recognises, because she’s seen it for a decade.

'You’re- '

The dresser shatters when it hits the floor, and Laura yelps, swiping her fingers over her face, the air cold enough to freeze her tears.

'Go,' she says. 'Leave me be.'

Mister Castle nods, and his face changes for a second, gone in the same flash of light that brought it. It almost looked skull-like, all bone and glowing eyes.

When the door is shut, and Laura is alone again, she screams her grief to the heavens, and gets only the crackling of the ice as it settles in reply.

* * *

In the end, Fury’s orders are simple.

‘Hit them until they stop moving.’

Clint looks at the Queen’s Guard, standing to attention and looking, for the first time, like the highly trained skirmishers that they actually are. Steve is, after all, a Captain, Monty a Major, and Dugan and Bucky are both Sergeants. They are trained, they’re _officers_. They know what they’re doing. Laura will be safe with them, no matter what happens. They’ve kept her safe this long. It’s only his interference in her life that’s endangered her.

Wade is bouncing on the balls of his feet, eager to get moving, eager to start beating the monsters to death.

‘Are we clear?’ Fury asks, and the upper echelons of his people, the handful of guards they’ve managed to keep on their side, the Queen’s Guard, they all nod.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Priority is to stop this from spreading to the rest of the kingdom. We don’t have enough manpower to spread out and protect the towns. But we can hold them if we fight hard enough.’

‘We’ll get back up,’ Steve promises. ‘We go down, we get back up.’

‘Just don’t die,’ Natasha snorts.

‘We don’t have time to die,’ Steve sniffs.

Clint eyes her, and she eyes him back from across the well cover they’re huddled around. After a minute, the men begin to peel off, and they head out to start the battle. Within seconds, they can hear Wade and Dugan hollering in unbridled glee, and the screeching of the monsters as they start fighting.

‘I won’t kill you,’ she says, quiet, contemplative, ‘you get a shot to get to Laura, you take it.’

He takes a breath, and nods.

‘Likewise.’

‘I’m not going to get her,’ she says, and leans over the boards to touch his arm. ‘It has to be you.’

Clint swallows, and nods.

‘Get a move on!’ Steve hollers, and they leap into action.

The castle is falling apart, walls getting knocked through and windows broken by the monsters climbing the bricks and getting hurled into it by the Queen’s Guard and the weapons they’ve amassed. Natasha has found one of the monster’s weapons and has worked out how to use it, and as Clint notches an arrow, tracks a monster skittering across the wall like a squirrel climbing a tree, he admires that fast learning.

It doesn’t take long for the monsters to spread into the Queen’s Village. Fury had already given it up for a lot cause, and sends his boys, what of them he has left, towards the towns.

‘Prepare the people,’ he orders, holding them by the collar when he gets his hands on them. ‘Get the vulnerable safe, and the able armed. We cannot fall.’

They all scurry off to do as bid, and by the time they’ve gone, all that are left are Clint, Natasha, Wade, and the Queen’s Guard.

Wade climbs up the rubble of one of the walls, and leaps onto a monster trying to climb the wall too.

‘Clint!’ he roars. ‘Get inside! He’s got her! He’s on his way!’

Clint looks at him, and then takes off towards the doors leading into the hall. Bucky follows him.

‘I’ll help you get inside,’ he says, and Clint nods his thanks.

They kick the doors down as one – barricaded from the inside, but Clint lets the dragon swell in his bones for a second, two, and the door caves, ripping the frame from the wall and sending it flying into the monsters swarming the hall.

‘I’ll keep them off your back!’ Bucky hollers over the screeching. ‘You get to Laura! She’ll takes the servant’s pass to get out! Go save the girl, hero!’

Clint freezes for a second, staggering up the stairs. His heart rattles in his ears, and then he forces himself to breathe, bracing himself on the steps.

Then he uses that to propel himself upwards, and he rushes up the stairs and through a door, into an office. The sound of Bucky fighting quickly fades under the sound of his own.

* * *

Laura is huddled beneath the heat of Mister Castle's latest gift, a tattered blanket, moth-eaten, but recognisable as one from her bed, when all of a sudden, the castle trembles, and the ice rattles.

She jerks to her feet when she sees the crack in the ice near her head, blanket forgotten, and looks at the trembling ground beneath her feet.

'Clint?' she whispers, because her heart is beating faster and faster and she can barely breath for it, lungs heaving for the air being sucked out of the room by the ice in a way it's not been lost before.

She clutches her arms, stares at the walls, the ice dripping and freezing and dripping again.

Footsteps rattle her bones; great, heavy steps, long stride. Purposeful. Clint couldn't make that much noise if his life depended on it. Laura grabs the nearest thing and yanks. The candlestick rips from the top of the dresser, shattering at the base and leaving jagged metal at the end instead of ice. It burns her fingers, blistering her skin, but she holds on and holds on hard. The footsteps are louder, and the castle trembles again. A painting falls from the wall and shatters into a thousand pieces.

Without warning her door is kicked not open, but clean from its hinges and it’s too big to shatter, but it cracks into large, uneven pieces, fragments skittering across the floor.

With a startled yell, Laura throws the candlestick, and Mister Castle ducks under it with a disapproving grunt.

'Stop that,' he says with a huff, and marches to grab her wrist.

His hand is burning and covered with blood, and she stares at it before looking up at his face. He’s got a cut on his cheekbone and blood on his temple, a split lip. There’ll be bruising; the red of the impact on his face is already settling into purplish tones. She watches his eyes watching her, and she bites at her lip; there’s something giddy and yet so calm in his eyes, the brown so warm and so cold at the same time.

'What's going on?' she demands, but picks her feet up, hurries after him when he strides towards the doorway.

He ignores her, and stomps across the broken door, dragging her along.

Belatedly, as she hisses on crossing the shards of door, splinters of wood and ice picking at her soles, Castle remembers that she's barefoot, and without missing a beat, swings her over his shoulders. She yelps, but goes appropriately limp and he picks up the pace.

'Shut your eyes,' he orders as he slides around a corner, slipping on the ice, and Laura recognises the tone well enough to do as she's told.

She can smell the blood as Mister Castle rushes down the stairs, his grip bruising on her thigh, and buries her face in her arm, gripping his greatcoat tightly to steady herself. As they race through the castle, she does her best to tune out what she can hear, but by the time the air is warm and Mister Castle's footfall stops crunching with the ice, she's become intimately familiar with the sound of a knife in living flesh.

'Put me down,' she orders, because the air is warmer here, and there’s no sound of the ice. 'I can run from here. I know my way around the castle.'

Mister Castle puts her down and holds her hands once she’s steady on her feet. He's bloodier than before; her white nightgown is now red. It wasn’t particularly _clean_ , not after the jaunt through the woods Barney Barton had taken her on, but it had still been white. She'll have to change before she sees the boys, else they'll start squalling about the blood.

It’s a terrible thing to say – squalling, as though there wasn’t genuine _grief_ behind seeing her covered in blood. Even her worst bleeding wasn’t like this, didn’t give her freckles in the brightest crimson, didn’t soak in splatters across her legs and along her back, and she hadn’t even known she was that covered; the dress sticks to her legs, clings to her back, her hair matted against her neck. She supposes she must look mad.

Mister Castle takes her purple fingers and holds them to his mouth, breathing hot air onto them. Laura itches, but doesn't pull away.

'Can you fight?' he asks her and she shakes her head.

'I know how, but - I cannot see straight, never mind be strong enough to fight.'

Mister Castle nods and lets go of her hands. He pulls the greatcoat off and drapes it over her shoulders, pulling a knife from the back of his breeches.

'Lead me,' he says, 'I'll keep you safe.'

She nods, and gestures him towards the door on the side of the room, pulling it open and leading them into the stairwell.

'This is the servant's pass,' she says, threading her arms through the sleeves of the coat.

It’s far too big for her, hangs inches over her hands, and she shakes the sleeves down as much as she can, but as soon as she lowers her hands, the sleeves fall back over her hands, and the tails drag on the floor.

There’s an expression on Mister Castle’s face when she glances over her shoulder at him, something fond but sad, and she turns away from it, her throat itchy all of a sudden. Funny that. Must be something in the air.

For the most part, the pass is empty, and Laura stays close to Mister Castle’s side as they make their way down the stairs.

‘It’ll bring us out into the Great Hall,’ she says, ‘and from there, we can get into the courtyard, and from there we can get to the gate.’

‘The gate gets us out into the woods,’ he nods, ‘on the path back to Lower Town.’

‘If we turn right immediately, yes, and then we – Lower Town? Why would we go to Lower Town?’

Mister Castle looks at her as though she’s an idiot.

‘Miss Page is there,’ he says, as though it’s obvious.

Laura has no idea who Miss Page is – she thinks she knows the name, thinks maybe Clint knows her, had mentioned her once – Reverend Murdock! She’s something to do with Reverend Murdock, and Murdock is –

‘Have you been escaping the dungeon?’ she asks, stopping on the stairs and staring at him. ‘I see no other way for you to know her.’

Mister Castle shrugs, stops a couple of steps down, and it puts their eyes level. They’re so brown, the kind of brown her father’s used to be.

‘Oh, God,’ she moans, rubs her face with both hands, scrubs at her itching eyes. She’s too tired to cry. When was the last time she slept? ‘My father – is he well? Do you know?’

Shaking his head, Mister Castle looks down towards the bottom of the stairs.

‘We need to move,’ he says, and Laura grabs his hand, drags him up onto a landing, through a door and out into the music room.

They burst in and the room’s full of the same blank-eyed men that Laura had been seeing throughout her stay in the icy castle, and she stops dead, feet squeaking on the stone floor. Time slows to a crawl as they turn to look at them, and Mister Castle’s ragged intake of breath sends chills down her spine.

He shoves her to the side with one hand, other hand twisting his knife to throw, and she trips over the coat, tumbles down behind the piano, and curls into a ball at the sound of the knife connecting with flesh, the splatter of blood barely audible over her own pulsing in her ears. She hums as loud as she can to drown out the sound of Mister Castle emptying the room, and she’s still humming when he grabs her by the arms and hauls her to her feet, ducking to fill her vision and keep her eyes occupied.

‘Eyes on the door, we keep moving,’ he says, ‘I have to get you out to Barton.’

‘Barton – Clint? Clint’s here? Frank, is – is he here?’

Frank looks to the door they’d just come through.

‘Laura, keep moving. Eyes on the door. Let’s go.’

She does her best, but she steps in a puddle of blood, and automatically glances down.

She knows that face, and bile wells in her throat. It’s one of the castle guard. He’s not much older than her, barely a year. He’d been new to the job, giddy at the honour of protecting the royal family. She can see the black veins beneath the blood.

‘Eyes front and centre,’ Frank reminds her, and grips the back of her head, yanks it up so she has no choice but to look forward.

Her fingers slip against the door handle, but she gets it open, and leads them into the corridor. There’s ice at the far end, so Frank grabs her wrist and drags her in the other direction. Laura stumbles once, twice, and Frank twists back, ducks to grab behind her legs and lifts her like a child, like she’s six and unable to walk another step. Something stutters in her chest, and she sobs once, a wretched, broken sound before slapping her hands over her mouth to stop anything further escaping.

‘No, no, no,’ he says, and rubs the back of her neck, kicks a door open, and strides through it. ‘Don’t, Laura. Later, when I’ve got you safe, you can cry then. Don’t cry now. We don’t have time.’

It’s insensitive, but it has to be. He has to be insensitive, and she appreciates it. There are more important things at stake.

 So she takes a deep breath and wriggles until he puts her down, and then she’s back to leading him through the castle and into another stairwell of the servant’s pass.

‘This still leads to the hall,’ she says, and Frank nods, watches over their shoulders.

‘The twins,’ he says, ‘they’re here.’

Laura frowns, and jiggles a door handle; locked. The servant’s pass is never locked.

‘They stayed? Why would they stay?’

But then she feels something warm and red settle in her heart, and she understands.

‘Clint,’ she whispers. ‘They stayed because of Clint. We have to warn him, they’ll – they’re made to fight Curses. He’s in danger.’

‘We’re all in danger, Princess.’

She turns back, looks past the breadth of Frank’s arm to see Wanda round the corner.

‘Wanda,’ she starts, and touches Frank’s arm, moves him out of the way.

He goes, but only because he’s turning to look, and he grabs Laura around the waist when he sees the girl at the other end of the corridor, stops the Princess going any further.

‘Let go of me, sir,’ Laura demands, and digs her nails into the back of his hand. ‘She won’t hurt me.’

‘I ain’t so sure of that,’ Frank replies, but when Laura glances up at him, his eyes swell red, and then fade back to brown, and something like comprehension crosses his battered features.

Slowly, he lets go of her, and Laura rushes down the corridor at the same time Wanda rushes up. They crash in the middle, holding onto each other tight.

‘Wanda,’ Laura breathes, and sweeps her bloody hands across the girl’s face, brushing her hair back and cupping her chin. ‘Wanda, are you safe? Your brother – is Pietro safe?’

‘We’re safe,’ Wanda replies, and sounds like she’s about to cry. But there’s no wetness in her gaze. ‘We are well. You are well?’

‘As well as I can be. Wanda, I – what’s happening?’

Frank stomps off past them, to the corner Wanda rounded, and he glances back at Laura, jerks his chin down the corridor, and she takes Wanda’s arm, tugs her along. Satisfied that they’ll follow, Frank takes off, stride shifting to lunge at a moment’s notice, and Laura squeezes Wanda’s arm.

‘It has been two days,’ Wanda whispers, ‘longer? They did not know.’

‘They?’ Frank tosses over his shoulder.

‘I knew,’ Wanda nods. ‘I knew he was there. I could feel fire. In their hearts. Not Curse. Like we.’

‘We – you and Pietro. What did he do? Is it the black veins?’

Frank stops walking, and they almost crash into him. His jaw has developed a tic when he turns back to look at them, and he spins his knife around and around and around his hand, first one way and then the other, and he stares at nothing.

‘The black veins are – he took men. Men and women in the castle. First the guards, and then the staff, and then he came for the prisoners, came for us. We’d been – we were in a tower, you know? That tall one, the tallest one.’

The tallest tower in the castle is over three hundred feet in height, and from the top, you can see almost the entire kingdom. Laura loves that tower the most, and for the longest time, had tried to persuade her mother to move her chambers into it, but Louise had explained the practicality of it to her daughter, explained how unsafe it was. The tower was defensible from the inside, yes, with its spiral staircase and its solid doors, but it would be easily assaulted from the outside if someone got close enough to the castle to attack. It would be the first place they went. It hadn’t stopped her from climbing to the top on balmy summer days to look out over her kingdom and long for her mother telling her all of its secrets.

Laura nods, chases the memory away.

‘I know the one.’

‘We were in the tower,’ Frank nods, ‘what of us survived Barton’s little display. I – I felt him, before he’d even come through the door – he was – he was responsible. What happened when the dungeons blew, that was – that was not Barton. Not the Barton I knew him to be.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Laura says, because she knew Clint wouldn’t have escaped of his own free will. And then, ‘why didn’t you escape?’

‘I felt him,’ Frank says, ‘I couldn’t see him, but I could see Barton losing control, could see what he was doing to him. I knew he’d be back. I knew he knew I was there. And he must have known that Little Miss Devil-Eye over there and her brother were in the castle too. She stinks of him.’

Laura looks at Wanda, and debates trying to surreptitiously smell her hair. It’s close enough, after all.

Instead, Wanda just looks at her hands, shaking and glowing red.

‘He is reason our powers come.’

Laura nods. ‘So the – the monster took my staff and – he put them under a spell.’

Frank twirls the knife again, stops it pointing directly up, blade trapped between two knuckles.

‘The spell is – vicious. It only works on the impure, the bad of heart. That’s why he came for the prisoners; if we were in the castle, if we’d been held in the dungeon, we’re the worst of it. You cannot find worse crimes than ours. So he came to us for his – his protection. His bodyguards.’

‘But you did not fall under the spell?’

‘He did not try,’ Frank shrugs, and Wanda tilts her head.

Her free hand raises, glowing red as the blood soaked into Laura’s nightgown, and the door behind Frank locks and holds in place, pulsing red.

Frank glances at it, and nods to Wanda. They must hear something Laura doesn’t.

‘I stay,’ she says, and touches Laura’s face, cups it in both hands and draws it upwards to kiss both of her eyelids. Wanda is only fourteen, barely bleeding, but Laura is so calmed by the gesture that it almost makes her panic. ‘You go.’

‘I’m not going without you,’ Laura protests. ‘You have to come with us, get to safety.’

‘Pietro stays too,’ Wanda says, and their foreheads touch, noses bumping. ‘Get safe. We follow later.’

‘I’ll get her out,’ Frank nods, and shoves the knife back into his breeches, reaches to take Laura’s hand. ‘You deal with them.’

The door rattles; monsters on the other side.

‘Go,’ Wanda says, and Frank tugs Laura away.

Laura protests, but goes at the look on Wanda’s face. She won’t die, not yet. She’ll come back.

As they rush down a flight of stairs – Laura is _positive_ there were not this many stairs in the castle before – she asks him why the monster did not try to put him under the spell.

‘I have a spell already on me,’ Frank says. ‘When – when my family were killed, I asked for help to get my vengeance. I don’t know what it was. But something answered me. I am now – immune. To those kind of spells.’

They reach the bottom of the stairs, and Frank opens the door, peers through it, and shuts her behind it when he slips through.

‘Frank!’ she hisses, but doesn’t open the door.

There’s some screeching and roaring, and then the door is swinging open, and Frank is waiting for her, breathing hard. She hops over the body of the monster, and takes his hand again.

‘Did you know Hodge?’ Laura asks as they continue on. ‘He was a guard for the – ‘

‘For the dungeon. I knew him. He was a disgusting sack of shit. If I’d had a list, his name would have been on it.’

Laura doesn’t ask what the list would have been for; Frank is not a butcher, but he’s still covered in blood.

They’re in a corridor not far from the Great Hall when Laura asks, ‘do you know his name? The monster, I mean. He’s been in my dreams for so long now, and he’s invading my home, and – name’s have power.’

‘Names have too much power,’ Frank agrees. ‘When he arrived, he was preaching to the skies above and the earth below about all this shit he was planning, all these ways he was going to make us suffer, and he announced his own presence, like he was king and footman both. Fucking ridiculous.’

‘Frank, his name.’

‘His name is Loki.’

'Frank! _There_ you are!'

Frank shoves her behind him, and before Laura can stop him, before she can do anything, Loki has clocked Frank around the face with the sceptre, knocking him off balance. As Frank twists back around to meet him with a broad fist already swinging, Loki adjusts his jab, and the sceptre hits Frank square in the chest. Instead of stabbing him though, instead of breaking skin and drawing blood, there's an explosion of light, a ringing in Laura's ears, and Frank is blown off his feet and halfway down the corridor, hitting the wall hard enough to dent the plaster. Laura screams, and Frank hits the floor, unmoving.

'Ah,' says Loki, looking at the staff thoughtfully. 'That's what lying to yourself looks like.'

'Frank!' Laura yells, rushing to him.

Frank twitches, and groans, a growl of a sound that is not really very human.

'Ah-ah-ah,' Loki tuts, and grabs Laura's arm.

'Get off me!' she snarls, and wrenches herself free. Or attempts to at least. 'You scoundrel, get your stinking claws off of me!'

'Hey,' Frank groans. He's on his hands and knees, blood on his lips as he spits a mouthful out. 'Hey, listen to the lady. Listen, fucker. Obey the fucking Queen.'

'She's not Queen yet.'

'By the time I'm done, she will be.'

Laura is fairly certain that's treason, but she wants, desperately, to believe that Frank means something else. Means another way of this ending.

'Then she will be Queen of a dead kingdom! I will bring this wretched land to its knees, and in its wake, the world will kneel. It is your way, after all! You Plain Ones, you wretched little insects, your natural state is on your knees.'

Laura catches Frank's eye, and there's enough of a glitter that she knows he hears the same thing.

'I've had bigger,' she says, idle, like she's talking about the weather.

Frank huffs a laugh and shoves himself to his feet, taking a few heaving breaths, but when he charges, Loki moves, imperceptibly, and Frank is left open to another swing of the sceptre. This time, the explosion sends both Frank and Laura flying, though Laura is stymied somewhat by the grip Loki still has on her arm, resulting in her shoulder dislocating almost immediately. She howls in pain, but it's nothing compared to the sound Frank makes when Loki's attack sends him not just into the wall but through it.

The dust settles, and Laura realises she's crying.

'Looks as though his safety means little, hm?' Loki hums, and yanks on her wounded arm.

Yowling like an angry cat, Laura rushes to keep stride, if only to avoid getting her shoulder pulled any further.

The door at the end of the corridor is kicked open, and Laura looks over her shoulder.

Clint. Covered in blood and with tears in his jerkin and breeches, bow slung over his shoulders and a knife in hand, but here. Clint is _here_.

He's Turning, unable to control himself, and Laura screams his name loud enough to make her bones shiver. She kicks Loki as hard as she can, but his grip doesn't even falter. He turns to look, and sniffs, disinterested.

'No,' he says, 'not today.'

And before – always before, because they've been caught out at all turns – Clint can move, Loki's thrown green fire into the ceiling, and the corridor collapses. Clint roars, and Laura's heart stops.

‘Clint!' she yells as Loki starts dragging her.

Loki is dragging her down the corridor, and she watches it ice over in their wake as she stumbles after him, sobbing at the pain in her shoulder.

* * *

Clint shields his face from the blast, but waves the dust and debris away, already jogging to the rubble pile, touching it as though the sheer want to get through will be enough to move it. The rock groans, and then settles, and the dust continues to spiral gently to the floor, catching the glow of the ice.

A groan from across the corridor, and Clint whirls, knife gripped tight, watching as a body hauls itself out of the hole, rolling over the brick to collapse in a heap on the icy, shattered tiles. For a minute or two, the body lies there, breathing raggedly with eyes screwed shut and feet occasionally twitching.

And then one of the body’s bloody, tattered hands bends at the elbow and points, behind without looking, straight to Clint.

‘You – you must be Barton,’ the body breathes, with gravel in its throat and a heaved breath pushing each word out.

Clint lowers the knife, slowly, tucks it into the sheath on his belt, and strides over to where the body is attempting to shove itself onto its elbows, and failing miserably.

‘Who are you?’ he asks, and crouches by the dark-haired, close-cropped head, and digs his fingers into sweaty, bloody armpits to lift.

‘Frank Castle, at your service,’ Castle replies, and his feet slip against the tile for a moment before getting purchase, and they manage to get him back upright.

There’s blood everywhere, and Clint can’t be sure how much of it is his. A lot, undoubtedly, judging by the open gashes littering his bare skin and tearing into his shirt, but more, he’s sure, is not. There have been bodies of monsters and the black-veined men across the castle.

‘The bodies,’ Clint murmurs, and pats Castle down. Force of habit. ‘That you?’

Castle lets him do what he wants, scrubs his face and breathes hard through his nose.

‘Yes. Had to do something to protect the Princess, right?’

 ‘They were innocent people,’ Clint says, and backs away from Castle to study him.

He looks familiar, in a vague sort of way. All these thugs look the same, in the end.

‘If they got caught by the spell in Loki’s sceptre, they aren’t innocent.’

Clint curls his lip, looks out over the corridor. It’s icing over, his breath starting to fog, and he’s sweating; the dragon in him is burning to escape, to tear through the castle, and he bites it down as best he can. He doesn’t have time for that now.

‘How did you escape it?’ he asks, ‘you don’t just – you can’t avoid something like that.’

‘I have a Blessing,’ Castle tells him, and limps off down the corridor, back to the door Clint had come through. He slips a little on the ice, and braces himself on the wall. ‘It’s not – I made Loki think I was on his side. Obviously, he now knows I'm not.’

‘Wade told me that you follow Miss Page around.’

The tips of Castle’s ears go pink, and he doesn’t reply.

‘But I’m pretty certain you were in the dungeon when Laura – after I – well. So how can you do both? I’ve met Miss Page, and she’s not old enough to have been followed by someone like you before you were arrested.’

‘Who’s to say I wasn’t arrested weeks before you?’

Clint supposes he has a point, but he’s also fairly certain that Castle had not spent weeks in the dungeon. He’d been the only one not hollering for Clint’s execution when Steve announced his crime to the entirety of the room. He’d just sat there, in the corner, quiet and contemplative. When Clint had been trying to sleep, he’d focused on the whispers coming from that quiet corner, the repetitive mumbling, and hadn’t understood a word of it, but had appreciated the routine all the same.

He racks his brain, tries to remember hearing the murmurs during his first stint in the dungeon, but he hadn’t been focused on anything other than the freshness of the smell of Laura’s skin, lingering in the fibres of his breeches, and clinging to the skin of his hands, no matter how hard he’d scrubbed them against the walls and floor and bars and his own face.

Even now, he can smell her, lingering in the air, honey and vanilla and the warmth of the sun on her skin. He feels the rumble in his chest, his belly, and he aches to hold her again. There had been no fear in her eyes when she saw him, no hesitation. She had seen him, and she had reached for him, and she had _wanted_ him, wanted him close, wanted him to close the distance and save her.

And he –

He had failed again.

‘Where is she?’ Castle asks, and kicks the door open.

It surprises the monster behind it, skittering and bug-eyed, and before Clint can react to it, Castle’s thrown his full weight into it, knocked it into the wall and bashed its brains out.

Clint watches the monster crumple, its golden crown falling from its head and rolling across the floor until it rattles to a stop.

His jaw tenses.

‘He has her. You know – him.’

Castle snarls, and heads off down the corridor.

‘Watch out for the twins,’ he barks, ‘Laura wanted you to be careful. They’re here.’

‘I know,’ Clint says, ‘they’re – they’re occupied with the monsters.’

Castle doesn’t look interested, and as he marches off to the next door, Clint recognises the path.

‘We’re going to the Queen’s Tower,’ he says, and Castle grunts.

Clint jogs after him, and as they start running up the stairs, he has a realisation.

‘He’s taking her there, isn’t he?’

‘To see the show,’ Castle nods.

Clint looks at him, and Castle shrugs one shoulder.

‘I kept her moving, kept her away from the windows. Knew she’d break if she saw it. She was already close.’

They pause by one of the windows and look out at the carnage. Clint glances at Frank, watches his profile as his jaw tightens and his eyes harden. The blood on his face is dried, flaking in the creases where he might have once had laughter lines.

‘You need to go down there,’ Clint says, and kicks the window out, pulling his bow off his shoulder and notching an arrow before the glass has hit the ground, three stories down.

Castle watches him aim and inhale, fire. The monster flying around the skies goes down like a duck, the thing it was riding exploding into an inferno when it hits the wall.

‘I knew she’d break if she saw this,’ Castle murmurs, leans against the wall, arms folding and watching Clint work.

‘She’s stronger than that.’

‘Not saying she’s not strong, but she hasn’t seen this before.’

Clint doesn’t reply, and his eyes track another one of the flying monsters as he notches another arrow.

'You know,' Frank says, considering it, watching as Clint fires shot after shot. 'You know, it's funny. I never realised how short the Princess was, how tiny her form, until I had to carry her down the stairs because it's icy upstairs, wall to wall ice, and she was barefoot in that. Her fingers were already purple, and god knows what her feet were like. I mean, I gave her my coat and she, ha, she drowned in it, you know?'

Clint spares him a glance; he's smiling, just about, a gentle little thing, but Clint is neither blind nor foolish, and he knows the smugness he sees in that smile. It's not exactly subtle.

'I saw,' Clint grits out. 'It was dragging on the floor.'

Frank nods, and adds, 'she's light, too. Nothing to her. Good at holding on. Nothing would get her off of me short of my arm getting ripped off.'

Clint can feel his hands shaking, and takes a breath to steady himself. His next shot hits a little too hard, and the flier explodes before it hits the ground.

Frank makes a noise of approval.

'Still,' he says. 'Pretty crier. You don't get those much.'

'Is Miss Page not a pretty crier?' Clint asks, just to see what Frank does.

He laughs.

'God no. But Laura, Christ. She's a pretty little thing. Dean really missed a trick or three in not naming her the heir.'

Clint tunes him out. He would have expected Frank, just going by the broken nose and dark eyes and down turned mouth, to not be much of a talker. But all Frank has done is talk.

Maybe he'd gotten lonely in the dungeon.

'Got a pardon waiting for me, if we get out of this alive. Ain't no question of me staying loyal to her. She's so like her mother. Lower Town collapsed when she died. No one wants her brother on the throne. We'd take that batty cousin of hers over him.'

'Monty?'

'Who the fuck's that? No, Charles Falsworth. They say he went mad.'

'There's a lot of that going around.'

Clint downs a few more fliers, and pulls away from the window to eyeball the convict.

‘I can get up to the roof,’ Clint says, turning back into the window. ‘You go down there and stop it spreading. It’s already burning the woods; we don’t need it getting into Lower Town. It’s bad enough that the Queen’s Village has already been taken out.’

Castle watches another three monsters fall in quick succession, Clint’s shots hitting home flawlessly each time, before he nods and claps Clint’s arm.

‘Get her out of there,’ he says, ‘get her safe. Need her on the throne.’

‘What?’ Clint asks, and fires one last arrow.

Castle is halfway out of sight, going back down the stairs, when he turns back.

‘She promised me a pardon,’ he says, ‘if I stood with her to the end. She said she had a plan. Reckon that plan was you, breaking your Curse, but I’m standing with her. She’ll be good on the throne, I reckon.’

He thumbs his mouth, where blood is welling in a split in his lip, and barks out a laugh.

‘Better than her father, that’s for sure. You know he got taken in by that fucker’s spell? Reckon – I used to read those shitty fairy tales to my little girl. The Dragon of York and the Body in the Pond and all that shit.’

Clint supposes there’s something he’s supposed to understand about it, but Castle doesn’t seem to want to elaborate, and he plods off down the stairs. Soon, his footsteps have faded, but the roar and clatter of him leaping on some monster or guard that’s chasing them up rattles back up to him.

Snorting, Clint carries on up the stairs, taking them as fast as his legs will take him.

* * *

When Loki drags her onto the platform at the top of the tower, she can see her home, her kingdom, going up in flames. There are monsters in the sky and on the ground, and half of the castle has already collapsed.

'Oh my God,' she breathes, fingers pressing over her mouth, sliding up until she can bite into her palm, keeping the sobs at bay. 'Stop this! Stop!'

She lunges to grab his sceptre, but he swats her away like a fly, and she's knocked to the ground, hitting her bad shoulder hard.

'Why?' she chokes. 'Why do this?'

'You prove persistent,' Loki remarks, 'like a particularly stupid dog. No wonder you're so close to that wretch.'

'This is because of Clint? You wish to destroy my kingdom because of his Curse?'

'Not destroy; rule. When you are dead and that wretch is broken, when he is mine and willingly submits to what has always been his fate, I will ascend the throne of this pathetic little land, and I will conquer the next, and the next, until all of this plain world is united under my banner. And then, you weak, pathetic little child, I will wage war on the Fair Realm, and I will claim it for my own.'

Clouds are rolling in, dense and already splitting, thunder rattling Laura's bones. Loki looks up, and sighs.

'Oh, _good_. He's woken up. I thought I'd dealt with him.'

'With who?' Laura hears herself ask, but her heart isn't in it.

She's too busy staring out over the kingdom, over the woods, burning and crumbling under the weight of Loki's army, too busy listening to the yelling. She can hear Steve and Frank howling at each other from here, Steve yelling orders, and Frank ignoring them to yell his own. She wonders who the castle guard are obeying. It's mostly them versus the army, barely twenty against hundreds. And it's spreading. The Queen's Village has already fallen. Lower Town will be next, and then Bearwood and Lynne's Brook. Soon, the kingdom will fall, if they cannot stop it.

Laura doesn't know what to do, and she rubs her bad shoulder, numb now to the pain with how scared she is, how worried for her kingdom she's become.

A flash of lightning, red as blood, as apples, as Peggy's mouth and her favourite dress, and Laura rushes to the edge of the tower, looks over it with hope. She can just about make the Fair Lady out, ripping through the monsters to join the boys, barely visible in their pelisses, swords and pistols in hand.

'Peggy!' She breathes. 'Oh, thank God.'

'She will not save you, not with all those Plain Ones in danger.'

'It doesn't matter,' Laura tells him, with the tremble of one about to laugh. 'She's here, she's going to stop your monsters in their tracks.'

Loki doesn't look like he believes her much, but she didn't expect him to. What matters is that Peggy's here, and Laura can see the monsters dropping like flies from here. The battle is as good as won, but Louise had not taught her daughter complacency, and so Laura does not risk taking the victory as fact.

'Tell me something,' she says, nails digging into the stone of the battlements. They must look a sight; Loki with his blue skin and horns and his sceptre shining like the most brilliant star, and Laura with her tangled, limp hair and drowning in Frank's greatcoat, open over her blood-soaked nightgown. She's a mess, a common whore, but she's never been more comfortable.

'Something,' Loki replies, and Laura kicks him in the shin. He doesn't even flinch.

'I wish to know if it was worth it. If Clint was so worth this.' She gestures at the battle below.

'You say that as though I am supposed to regret my actions, as though the curse was not part of this plan.'

Laura stares at him, her jaw tightening.

'Then - you - you were involved in Laura's death? Were - you were the dragon that killed her. You had this planned from the beginning? Did you hex the Prince's father, the way you hexed mine?'

'It wasn't a hex,' Loki grunts. 'I am not some hag in the woods.'

'Hag – that was you! You disguised yourself and – why? Why taunt me so?’

‘Taunt you?’ Loki snorts. ‘No, no, Princess, you misunderstand! I wasn’t _taunting_ you!’

Not taunting? Then – then he was –

‘You put a Curse on me?’ she whispers, hand going to her belly, to the scars left by Clint’s claws. ‘You – you said, you said I would know it. You said I would know tragedy like I knew my own flesh and blood. You meant that – you meant what happened with Clint, didn’t you? You knew it was coming – you Cursed me so that it would happen.’

‘And how I wished you would die for it!’ Loki crows. ‘Things would have progressed so nicely, so without strife! You would have died, and Barton would have been mine, and we would not be here now.’

‘The kingdom would never have fallen,’ she tells him, and hates how unsure she sounds. But then she takes a breath, and says it again, firm and sure and cold as steel. ‘The kingdom would never have fallen. Not to you, never to you. It would have risen out of its grief and it would have _destroyed_ you.’

‘A pleasant sentiment,’ Loki hums, disinterested, and turns his red gaze back out onto the carnage below. ‘But they would have kneeled, because they always kneel.’

‘And what now?’ she asks, steps into his space, presses herself close enough to smell the decay on him. ‘What of me now? You had weeks to kill me, you had time aplenty. There were three whole days where Barney Barton had me in the woods alone. He could have killed me then. He could have brought you my heart.’

‘He would have brought a deer,’ Loki sniffs. ‘He’s too like his darling baby brother. It’s sickening.’

Thunder rumbles overhead, lightning sparking only feet from them. Laura feels her bones ache for the charge in it.

‘Fuck off,’ he says, and Laura looks at the skies.

‘What’s up there?’ she asks, but before Loki can reply, she hears a monster screech, so similar to the sound Clint had made that night in the summer house before it exploded, and she involuntarily flinches, shrinks away from the edge.

Loki smiles at her, but it’s not so much a smile as it is a sneer.

‘Are you scared of him now?’ he asks. ‘You have not seen him, have you? Since he killed you. You haven’t spent a minute in his company, and now, to think he is out there, losing control. It scares you.’

Laura swallows, looks at her hands, half-hidden behind the cuffs of the coat. She can feel herself sweating, but the rain beginning to fall is cooling the sizzle in her skin. Her palms are bloody, but she can’t recall where the blood is from; it doesn’t seem to be hers. She thinks perhaps it was when Frank held her hands. Her fingertips are still blue, despite the heat of August clinging to the air.

Her hands are shaking.

‘No,’ she whispers, clenches her hands into fists. ‘I’m not scared of him.’

She doesn’t think she’s lying. She doesn’t feel scared. She knows Clint didn’t _mean_ to do what he did. He didn’t _mean_ to hurt her, not like that. But it happened, and the sound of that screech –

Laura shivers, and clutches the coat tight about herself. It smells of blood and sweat and cold steel, and she breathes in the dampness of the collar, itching against her skin with the weight of Frank’s sweat, and she wallows in it for almost thirty seconds as Loki watches the battle and laughs.

Then she shoves the collar away from her skin, and she swallows again.

‘I am not scared of him,’ she repeats, louder, demanding the attention she is so used to. ‘And I am not scared of you.’

Loki looks at her, in her blood-stiff, sticky nightdress, with her tangled hair and her brazen eyes, molten gold shining like the sun, and he laughs some more. Without seeming to move, he’s in her face, and Laura stares at him, meets his gaze.

‘Oh, Princess,’ he laughs, ‘oh Princess. You will be.’

The sceptre touches her heart, point so sharp as to cut just by brushing her skin, and she feels the cold seep into her veins. Deeper than her bones, it spreads from her heart out into her fingers and her toes, and Loki steps away, leaving her to stumble forwards, joints seizing.

‘What did you do to me?’ she demands, but it comes out barely a whisper. Her tongue is thick in her mouth, her throat closing.

She can’t breathe, and the rush of blood echoes too loudly in her ears, drowns out everything else. Her vision blacks around the edges, tunnelling until all she can see is Loki’s leering face, inches from hers and watching her in fascination.

Before the minute is up, Laura is frozen solid, a picturesque statue made of ice. Her hands are outstretched, her nightgown caught in the breeze, what little of it could catch, stuck to her skin as it is.

Loki touches her cheek, and Laura can just about feel it. And then there is nothing.

She is alone in the darkness.

* * *

It takes him a lifetime to climb the tower, even with Clint taking the stairs three at a time, ducking and dodging around the blank-faced, black-veined, rigid men and metal monsters that come racing towards him. The boys will handle them.

Though he does throw one that gets a lucky punch to the face down the stairs, just for his trouble.

‘Bastard,’ Clint grunts, rubbing at his split cheek as he continues racing up the stairs.

As he bursts out of the stairwell onto the top of the tower, he’s momentarily breathless at the view the tower affords him. He can see across the kingdom up here, far beyond the boundaries of the forest, and he can see fires burning in Lower Town. A tiny part of him capable of the thought hopes that Matt’s okay, that he’s not doing something silly. An even smaller part connects what Wade had said earlier about Castle, and he makes a subconscious note, in that split second of looking at Lower Town, to send the man straight there as soon as this is over.

But then the second has passed and his attention is fixed on Laura, looking as though she is carved ice, mid-motion and with such worry on her face.

‘You motherfucker!’ Clint snarls, but trying to race forward to – he doesn’t know how to get Laura out of the ice and back to flesh and bone and golden eyes, but he’s going to try anyway, he’s stopped by the appearance of that staff between him and his target.

That fucking staff –

Clint takes a deep breath, two, three.

‘Oh, _look_ at you,’ Loki croons, fangs bared, so Clint bares his in turn. ‘You’re _purple_. Look at those eyes! They’re so shiny; I can’t bear to see them.’

Clint barely has a second to drop and roll out of the way of the attack, but drop and roll he does, and he comes up with a hard kick, a punch to follow. Neither connect, but he doesn’t lose his balance, uses the momentum to carry him into the next swing of his fists. When Loki ducks out of the way, Clint rips his knives out of his boots, twists them around his fists and charges.

Loki dances out of the path of every slash of his knife, laughing all the while, and Clint is doing his best to avoid the sceptre. He has to avoid it; he can’t get touched again, he’s already fighting himself more than he is Loki. Laura has his blood boiling, and he can already feel his skin tearing.

He cannot lose control, not near her. Not again.

He’s got her halfway when Clint loses his footing and goes down.

It’s only down for a second, but a second is all it takes, and the monster has him by the arm, squeezing tight enough to force the knife from his grip.

‘Oh, _Clint_ ,’ he sighs, ‘you _do_ have heart, I’ll give you that. You have such a heart.’

The sceptre moves, without Loki seeming to move with it, and one second it is in front of Clint’s heart, shining as blue as his eyes, and the next.

The next it’s protruding through his back, bloody and glowing so, so blue.

Laura does not react, but of course she doesn’t; she’s a statue made of ice, hands outstretched. As Clint’s vision spots black, tunnels, all he can see is her hands, as if she’s reaching for him, concern on her frozen features. He hears a scream, and imagines it’s her, but it’s only his blood rushing in his ears, and then it fades into silence, and Laura slips from his gaze.

‘That’s quite enough of that,’ Loki says, pleased with himself, and kicks Clint’s body off the sceptre and off the tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boy howdy


	11. True Love's Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All things end, one way or another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boy howdy, enjoy my lovelies~!

Wanda breathes, and she breathes, and she breathes. Pietro holds her hand, and his head moves with his eyes, first this way and then that, scouting everything and examining even more of it, watching and waiting and hoping. She is not sure, not any more, what he’s hoping for. Some kind of logic, perhaps, some kind of answer, some rhyme or reason to this attack.

She knows he can feel it in his bones the same as her, the tug of their not-Curse, the tug of old magic, drawing them in as though they are mere facets of light upon a diamond.

‘This is not our fault,’ Pietro whispers into her hair, when his hands have brushed the tears away from her face, swept them back behind her ears. ‘We did not know.’

‘We knew enough,’ she whispers back, and twists her face into his neck. ‘He is here. You can feel him too.’

‘I can feel him too,’ Pietro nods. ‘He is – there are others.’

Not like them, no, no, not like them. But there are others. Blank-eyed, Wanda knows, has seen them plodding about like there’s nothing wrong, but everything is wrong. Everything is wrong. Everything.

There are veins creeping up their necks, black like the night and blacker than death, and she wonders, perhaps, if anyone else has noticed them, or whether she has seen beneath the illusion. She daren’t ask Pietro about it; if he can’t see them, he’s not subtle enough to start looking without alerting everyone he stares at that he’s staring at them. As far as she can tell, whatever monster has invaded the castle, claimed it for their own, it doesn’t realise that they’re here, or, if it has, it doesn’t realise that they’re aware of it in turn.

At first, it had just been the guards on the very edge of the castle, the ones stationed in the quiet corners of the walls. Then it had been the guards on the gate, and then the gardeners, the groundskeepers, the stablehands. Then it had been the kitchen staff, the maids, the footmen. It had crept through the castle over a couple of days, but it had felt like barely minutes before the entire castle seemed to have come under the spell.

And all the while, all they could do was sit there and watch. They were vocally incompetent children, wards to the state through the near-dead princess’ stubborn defiance, and now, with her not there to protect them, they were ignored at best. Even if Wanda could tell Commander Fury what was happening, would he listen to her? He had not looked kindly on her when Laura had introduced them, but Laura had assured her that that was merely Commander Fury’s way. He looked unimpressed at everybody who passed his way because that was his face and he had little inclination to change it.

He had been even less impressed in the aftermath of the ball, grumbling words she barely understood but recognised the tone of under his breath as he stomped back and forth past her, huddled on a bench with her brother, shaking with the guilt of what she’d done, of what the not-curse had made her do.

Clint had been a good man, he’d been a _good_ man, and his heart, for all the scabs and scars and rends inches deep and miles long, had been pure. He’d been so good, and he’d been good to Laura too, heart beating in tandem to hers, beating the same song, because he had _loved_ her the way no man had ever loved a woman before, not one that she had seen. Not even her parents, she thinks, had loved quite the way Clint loved Laura. Three hundred years of yearning would do that, though, she supposes.

He hadn’t deserved it, hadn’t deserved her fingers in his mind, playing a song across his thoughts like the memory of Laura’s eyes in sunlight and the feel of her hair between his fingers, the smell of her skin when he breathed at her temple, like all those little details were the keys of a piano. She had played him and he had done what Strucker had wanted her to make him do.

He had killed the Princess.

Laura, the one person who had shown them kindness, who had given them a home where there was no home to be given, had been killed because of what she’d done.

‘Pietro,’ she whispers, and his gaze snaps back to hers. ‘Pietro we have to make this right. What I did. We have to make it right.’

He nods, understands. He had cried, when he saw Steve carry Laura’s body through the hall towards the stairs. He’d sat there and he’d bawled, because Laura had been dead, and it had been because of them. Not so much him, but he was no more guilt-free than his sister, whom he could have stopped, had he only had the strength. Still, what was done was done, and dwelling on it will get them nowhere.

‘We have to make it right,’ he says, and glances again to the right; there is a guard there now, black-veined and blank-faced, where there was not a guard before. ‘Come on, we need to – we should find Commander Fury. He may help.’

‘He hates us.’

‘He will understand.’

And Nick Fury understands, when two small teenagers, with Cursed eyes and shaking hands, lips bitten red-raw with the guilt of what they’d done, what they had been able to do, what they could have done, appear at the door of the war room, fingers laced tight.

He understands, and he ushers them inside.

 

* * *

 

The castle is on fire. It’s been on fire for a while. What of it isn’t on fire is frozen solid, looking like it had been carved out of ice, glimmering and shining bright in the firelight and the dawning sunlight.

Natasha has been running through all the rooms she can break through, Sam hot on her heels and the knife in her hand bloody as all hell. There hasn’t been a peep of it from Sam, but Natasha hadn’t expected there to be.

‘I need to get to Monty’s estate,’ she says, grabbing Sam’s wrists and dragging him to a door.

Sam, she knows, is quite capable of defending himself, quite capable of kicking _her_ backside into touch, but she’s working on five different shades of adrenaline and her only thought is to _protect_ him. The black-veined guards are not something she was prepared for, and she doesn’t know what to do beside _kill_ them.

‘The Queen’s Guard?’ he asks, and Natasha nods, kicks the door in and lunges through, scouting it out in three quick blinks.

It’s empty, and she takes a breath, slams the door behind him.

‘Monty had them all go there, because – because.’

She takes a deep breath, in-two-three, hold-two-three, out-two-three.

‘Laura was kidnapped from the estate. They’re looking for her now, but it’s been four days, I doubt they’re holding out much hope now.’

Sam goes very, very still behind her.

‘Kidnapped?’

‘So he said.’

Natasha lets go of him and takes another deep breath.

‘Sam,’ she says, turns to look him in the face. ‘Promise me – whatever happens today, whatever this leads to, promise me you won’t get yourself killed.’

‘I won’t,’ he nods, ‘I’ll – I’ll do what I can to get the remaining survivors out and healed up. Abraham’s safe, and the others are – ‘

‘We both know Abraham will be back as soon as he sees the smoke. And I can’t trust any of them to look after themselves. I’ll need you to make sure they’re accounted for. I don’t trust Ross to not try and involve herself.’

Sam curls his lip. ‘I wish you didn’t involve yourself,’ he says, and Natasha laughs.

She touches his face, and draws it down to kiss him, soft and sweet, lips pillowed perfectly.

‘I love you,’ she says, ‘but of course I involve myself. It’ll take the standing army a day to mobilise and march from the Queen’s Village, and we both know how much damage can be done in a day. Someone has to do something in the meantime. Now go on, get those survivors out of here, we have a castle to reclaim and a Princess to rescue. I’ll ride as hard as I can to the boys, and I’ll whip them all the way back here. We’ll be back in only hours.’

It’s not an “only hours” sort of journey, and Sam knows that. Natasha knows that Sam knows that. It’ll be nightfall before she arrives at the Falsworth estate, and daybreak before they’re back. By then, the whole castle could be under the spell. Already, the west wing has fallen to the ice, and the illusion of Laura’s sleeping form has been dispelled, overpowered by the spell being put upon the castle by the – the – the thing that had haunted Laura for all those weeks.

Laura had once described it to Natasha, described the monster, and Natasha had committed the words to memory. The blue skin and red eyes and horns like something from the bowels of the church’s worst stories, no, no Natasha wouldn’t forget those in a hurry. They would stay with her for a long while.

She’s sure she is not imagining the glimpses of the monster she’s catching, as if from behind a veil or around a corner, like it is not really there at all and she is only imagining it.

The guards let her leave, blank-faced and unspeaking, and she frowns at them as she trots past on her horse before shrugging it off and kicking the horse into a gallop. There’s no time to lose.

 

* * *

 

Peggy crashes into the woods with an almighty bang, and it knocks over the monsters in her immediate area. Swiftly dispatching of them with little more than a wave of her hand, she slips between the trees and makes for the castle wall, collapsed under the weight of the invading army. They were prepared for man-made monsters, for catapults and explosives and the heavy press of men fighting the wall, instead of – of –

Whatever these are.

‘Steve!’ she calls when she claps eyes on him, bayonet in one hand and the well-cover in the other, being utilised as a shield.

It’s not a particularly effective one, and she’s of half a mind to tell him to go to the armoury and get a proper one if he’s going to use one.

‘Peggy!’ he hollers back, ‘glad to see you in the battle! We need all the help we can get.’

‘The Council approved my interference,’ she says, and waves her hand at a monster.

Bucky protests loudly from his spot atop a pile of rubble.

‘Oh, hush, there’s plenty to go around,’ she scoffs, and turns back to Steve. ‘There’s been little to do in the human world, you understand. It’s taken me _days_ to argue my interference here, but they understand that someone has to interfere. I took it to the highest members of the council, and they’re looking at sending in their best to help.’

Steve grunts, not particularly caring. He tells her as such.

‘Couldn’t give much of a shit, Peg,’ he tells her. ‘We have our hands full. Is Laura safe?’

Peggy’s eyes go a little vague, and then she nods.

‘The – the – there is one of Death’s Blessed with her. She is as safe as she can be.’

‘Death’s Blessed?’ Bucky asks, having made his way down to them.

Out of nowhere, it seems, Wade appears at Peggy’s shoulder.

‘Frank Castle,’ he says, by way of explanation. ‘Lost his family, sold his soul for a Blessing. More of a Curse if you ask me. Got it from Death himself, so they say, but I’m not so sure it was. Death ain’t the sort to be Blessing no one. But whatever Blessed him, it’s a Blessing. He won’t die, not without its say-so, and protecting Laura isn’t his purpose, no matter how beneficial to the purpose he thinks it is. But – either way, she’s safe with him, for a while at least. Once he’s got her safe, he’ll – he’ll – he’ll join the fray. He plans to hand her over to Barton and join in on the murder and mayhem.’

Steve nods, and twirls his bayonet around his wrist before twirling it the other way, back into his fingers.

‘So we don’t worry about her,’ he says, ‘at least, not as much as we would. She’s safe. We have to trust that, and focus on this instead.’

He gestures at the ravaged castle, the screeching, skittering monsters clambering over the walls, the fires lit from the kitchens up to the Queen’s Tower. It’s getting overwhelming, but they raise their arms all the same.

 They don’t have a choice but to fight, so fight they shall.

 

* * *

 

Monty is racing as fast as he can down the underground tunnels after the last of the escapees, one hand on the uneven wall to at least keep himself from tumbling _too_ badly, but he’s aware that his feet are crossing over themselves, that he’s looking more and more like a drunkard with every jolt through his aching legs and up into his ribs.

It’s not an easy passage to traverse when you’re stumbling, but he does his best, and he can just about hear the stragglers echoing back down to him. He’ll catch up before they’re all out the other end, and he pauses to catch his breath, wonders where they’re coming out of the tunnels. Will they come out on the Bearwood or Queen’s Village side of the castle? He’s so turned around he can’t tell the tunnel they’re in, even though he used to go traipsing around them with Laura once upon a time, used to know them like the back of his hand. It’s been so long that he’s unsure which way he’s going.

Then he sees a shape Laura carved into the rock, aged seven, a poorly shaped dragon’s head, spitting fire in a series of growing jagged triangles.

Bearwood. They’re headed to Bearwood.

‘Wait!’ he hollers, and has to grab the wall to keep himself upright. ‘Wait! Hold on!’

There’s some whispering, and then the shuffle of footsteps echoes louder and louder as someone returns to him.

‘Monty?’

Monty braces himself against the wall and presses a hand to his ribs, pants it out until he can breathe steady.

‘Sam,’ he sighs, and shoves himself away from the wall to stumble towards the doctor. ‘Sam, listen. Bearwood’s not going to be safe, not now, not with these – these monsters? These monsters, they’ve taken the castle, and Nick’s sent the last of his guard into the towns to try and rally the standing troops. I’m not holding out hope for the Queen’s Village, but we should be able to fortify the estate if we can get through Bearwood before they do.’

Sam nods, and glances back down the tunnel.

‘We’ve got the King and Jason with us,’ he says, quiet, stepping into Monty so his voice doesn’t travel as much.

Monty juts his jaw; he doesn’t trust either of them, what with the blue eyes Steve had been grumbling about since the twins arrived. But he looks at Sam, and Sam seems to see it on his face.

‘They’re – better,’ Sam says, hesitating a little. ‘They’re themselves, at least – at least, they’re back to themselves as much as they always were.’

Monty considers this for some minutes.

‘No eyes?’

‘No eyes,’ Sam nods, and extends an arm. ‘Come on, Major, let’s catch up and we’ll see about fortifying the manor when we get there.’

Monty keeps his mouth shut when he’s half-carried, half-dragged through the throng of escapees – and he’s pleased to see a disgruntled Miss Martinelli amongst them – towards where Dean and Jason are waiting. Evidently, Sam told them to wait, and they listened to him, which surprises Monty somewhat; most of the time, telling either of the male Harcourt royals to do anything is worse than expecting a brick wall to pirouette.

 They look sheepish, to a degree, looking at neither their party nor at each other, and stand with their eyes fixed on the floor.

‘Coz,’ Monty greets, jovial enough, and extends a hand to clap Jason on the shoulder.

He doesn’t much consider Jason his cousin, has only ever really been close to Laura, but Jason needs support now, it’s obvious in the hollows of his cheeks and the tremors in his fingers.

‘Monty,’ Jason nods, lifting his gaze to meet the Major’s, and Monty nods at the earthiness of the brown his eyes are holding. ‘Long time no see.’

‘We’ve not had much chance to meet,’ Monty agrees; he actively avoids Jason any time he comes to the castle.

They all do.

Jason extends his arm, and Monty gratefully takes it, and they move to stand with the King. Dean looks haggard in a way he has never seemed haggard before, as if a thousand years have been dropped onto his shoulders, and he’s been carrying them for a thousand more. Monty almost pities him, but there must have been something dark in his heart for him to have been taken by the spell that’s taken the castle. From what Wade had said of it, from what they’d gleaned of the spell, only those of a dark heart could be taken in.

‘I think,’ Dean says, as they start to walk, Sam trotting past to take up point with Doctor Erskine and one of Fury’s lot, ‘that perhaps I might retire. I don’t think – I am not as strong as I was. This isn’t me, not anymore.’

Monty is sure abdication is not something the king should be talking about when there are fifty of his subjects around them to hear him.

‘I think Laura should take the throne, if we make it out of this,’ Dean continues, ‘if she ever comes out of that sleep, I think perhaps she should take the throne, the way Louise wanted her to. Perhaps this is all punishment, for not following her wishes.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Monty says, because it is ridiculous. ‘You’re being ridiculous. This goes beyond what you did and didn’t do.’

‘What I didn’t do was be her father when she needed me most, and look at what came of it! A Cursed man stealing her heart and now this – this monster is here, invading my castle, and what am _I_ doing? I am King, and look at me, cowering in a tunnel as though I am rabbit escaping a fox!’

Monty doesn’t know what to say that isn’t an agreement, so he says nothing at all. The silence is an agreement in itself.

 So he sighs, and he looks out over the tunnel left to traverse.

‘We’ll deal with that when we get there,’ he says, and Dean sighs in turn, plods off down the tunnel.

They don’t reach the end for another long hour’s walk, and the sky is black with rain when they emerge in the back of the storehouse in Bearwood, built especially to hide the exit to the tunnel.

 

* * *

 

Laura sees, through a veil of cracked, rotting ice, the sceptre pierce Clint’s heart. She sees the blood spray across the sky. She sees Loki’s foot press tight to Clint’s gut, and push him from the tower. She sees it all, as if it is a dream, a nightmare she cannot escape from.

She sees it all, and she dreams of less, dreams of more, dreams of another way.

Then she dreams of nothing, and the ice fades into blackness.

 

* * *

 

Gabe is chasing down a few of the monsters trying to escape over the collapsed wall with Jacques at his side when a holler distracts them.

‘Jacques!’

They whirl around, and gape.

‘Rita?’ Jacques hollers back, and lowers his musket, briefly, before raising it again to stab the bayonet, pointedly, into the oncoming neck of a monster looking to capitalise on his inattention. ‘What?’

‘We saw the fire!’ she hollers, and leaps from the horse.

Annette is with her, and dismounts alongside her mother, rushing over the rubble to come to the Guardsmen’s side.

‘We came to help,’ she says, and her eyes flicker to Gabe’s for half a second, a full second, before flickering away.

‘The fires are climbing,’ Rita nods, ‘they are visible from home. The Franks are in an uproar. We are trying to have a revolution, but York is on fire, and no one can resist a fire.’

‘The Frankish are coming to help?’ Gabe asks, ‘it’s a four hour ride to the border alone.’

‘Why do you think it took so long to come to you?’ Rita snorts, and hands a knife and pistol from her belt to her daughter. ‘No, no, the Frankish are gaping as they do. They are like moths to a flame, but they are terrified deer, and will not approach.’

Gabe spots the monster rushing to them at the same time Annette does. They load their weapons, but Annette is faster, and has her pistol braced on her wrist and fired before Gabe has finished loading the musket.

‘Damn,’ he says, as the monster skids to a dead heap some feet away. ‘I’ll take that.’

 Annette smiles, and Rita snorts again, rounding her daughter to get to her husband. She’s about to open her mouth when there is an almighty screech above their heads.

 

* * *

 

Clint is dead.

 

 

 

 

The dragon is not.

 

* * *

 

The screech rattles all of them, man and monster alike, and everyone pauses for a second, two, three, and they watch as a dragon bursts from Clint’s falling body, exploding outwards in a fifty-foot wingspan of purple veins and scales.

‘What the _fuck_?’ Dugan bellows, and with a beat of its wings, the dragon is righting itself and grabbing hold of the tower, clawing great chunks from the bricks as it scrambles to climb back up to the platform, where green fire is raging.

‘That’s a fuckin’ dragon,’ Bucky adds, and Steve nods.

‘That’s a fuckin’ dragon,’ he echoes.

They gawp as the thing pushes away from the tower with a beat of its great wings that sends a gust of wind at them and would have soaked them with the rain it batted away, but they’re already soaked to the bone. It soars through the air for a long moment, gliding as it surveys the lay of the land, perhaps new, perhaps unfamiliar, perhaps unchanged from the last time it saw the sun, and then one of the monsters shoots at it.

With another almighty screech, it flaps its wings and turns, ripping the monster in two with a snap of its terrible jaws. Blood splatters across the sky, and sprinkles a good helping of monsters below like the first rains of spring.

Abruptly, Bucky starts to laugh.

‘Jesus Christ,’ he chokes out between guffaws, ‘Jesus _fucking_ Christ.’

Steve pats his shoulder, and turns his attention back to the monsters, skittering and screeching and starting up their assault once again. There is no time to waste.

 

* * *

 

‘Where’s Laura?’ Frank demands, when he crosses Jim’s path, saving his life with a roaring swing of a sword that lops the head off the monster sneaking up behind him.

‘Wilson said she was with you!’ Jim replies, and kicks the body of the monster for good measure.

‘No,’ Frank grunts, and glances up at the tower, wiping the back of a filthy hand across his bleeding nose. ‘No, I got – we were separated. Barton went to get her.’

‘Barton’s up there,’ Jim tells him, the colour of his battle-flush draining from his face and leaving him gaunt. He gestures at the dragon chomping on the monsters that get close enough and setting fire to the rest. ‘He’s _up_ there. That’s him. The dragon. That’s Barton.’

Frank drags a hand down his face.

‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ he says.

They stand there gawking at the dragon blazing with purple fire as he swoops and dives through the air, attacking anything that crosses his path. He seems to be vaguely avoiding killing the humans, the not-monsters that are desperately fighting to save the kingdom. No doubt a few of the monsters have slipped through their thinly-stretched net and have made it as far as Lower Town. The Queen’s Village has already fallen; even from here, Frank can see the fires and imagines he can hear the screaming. A mess of aristocracy and overzealous, pompous, white-collar cowards, the Queen’s Village men. If they’re lucky, the ladies will rise to the task like they rose in Lower Town, standing tall against the batshit insane hooliganism that ran rampant after Louise’s death.

He remembers, with some measure of warmth, Miss Page standing tall in the face of Mister Wesley, because Miss Page had had no choice but to stand tall. She had survived, and continues to thrive now. Frank dismisses any further thoughts, because thinking any further on it isn’t going to do anybody any favours, and his attention needs to be on securing the kingdom, and by extension, his pardon.

‘Christ,’ he says. ‘Jesus _fucking_ Christ.’

 

* * *

 

 

‘I’m going after Laura,’ Peggy says, out of nothing, sometime later.

Steve’s muscles are aching, but he won’t slow down, won’t stop.

Can’t stop.

‘Huh?’ he asks, helpfully.

‘She needs my help, so I’m going to help her. I thought you might like to know.’

Steve doesn’t argue with her, because Peggy is already moving to ascend the tower, disappearing between seconds and reappearing atop the tower, striding across the platform to where Laura stands, frozen in ice.

‘Come along,’ Peggy breathes, cupping Laura’s face in both hands, ‘don’t pretend as though this is stronger magic than mine. I love you, dear one, so very much. Don’t you dare leave me.’

There is no reaction from Laura, not a rustle of Frank’s coat against her ankles, not a hair out of place, not a flutter of her eyelashes. Peggy tries every spell she can think, every counter-hex and reversal she knows. But there is no reaction from the Princess, and no reaction from the Gods, old and new and fair all. There is nothing. Laura is lost.

Above the woods, Barton bites down on the leviathan, and sinks his claws in. The screech they both make as they tussle mid-air, crashing down into the trees, shakes the earth almost as much as their landing does.

‘Fair Lady!’ Loki crows, and green fire spits across the platform.

Peggy dodges it with red fire of her own, red enough to shine like blood as it clashes with Loki’s fire. The resulting explosion has them staggering back, but they’re stepping back into each other within seconds.

Their battle rages across the platform, fire and ice and spells crafted in seconds, whipped like knives across the other’s hearts. Laura is forgotten in the fray, icy fingers outstretched and expression concerned.

 

* * *

 

Laura’s fingers twitch.

 

* * *

 

As she pulls herself free of the ice, inch by inch and heaving breath by heaving breath, she finds herself staring down green fire and wax-red flames, staring down purple smearing across the sky like the sweeping stroke of a brush bigger than the universe, and she chokes on the heat of the air. Hacking as her aching legs give way beneath her, freed from the ice holding them, and by extension, the rest of her, upright, she curls up on the stone of the platform and makes herself as small as possible.

The fight is raging around her, but there is nothing she can do, nothing she can –

Across the platform, she can see Clint’s bow, and a scattered handful of arrows.

His bow! But – but –

Where is _he_? Where is Clint?

The monster and Peggy are hurling abuse at each other, hurling hexes and words in equal measure, and Laura shoves herself onto her elbows, tries to ease her spinning head by going slowly. There is blood smeared all around the bow, dragged in long stains and splattered in thick patches, and she stares at it as she works her knees under her to lift herself a little higher.

God, she prays, God that it isn’t Clint’s blood.

A clash of fire, and Peggy disappears with an inhuman screech, leaving only Loki and Laura atop the tower. Laura collapses back onto the platform in a heap, and lays perfectly still. Loki’s steps echo closer, and she chances peeking her eyes open, staring at the shining toes of his boots as he stops near her head.

He swears, vehemently, and turns away, the tail of his robes hitting her in the face. He marches to the edge of the platform, hands on the stone wall, and he looks out over the battle, muttering to himself. Laura inches herself forward and over, back onto her knees to crawl towards the bow.

A screech from up, up, up, high above them, and her gaze is drawn to its source, to a dragon, as big as any cloud, circling the forest, fighting a monster twice its size. It’s purple, a deep, beautiful purple, the same purple as the ribbon she had tied about Clint’s wrist a lifetime ago, the same purple as the gown she had worn on her birthday.

‘Oh,’ she breathes. ‘Oh, my darling.’

Peggy reappears, thunderous and blazing red, and both she and Loki are caught off-guard. Peggy’s fire almost knocks him over the edge of the tower, but he recovers in time to fight her back, and Laura stays still as they wrap themselves back into the duel.

A minute passes, two, and she stretches her arm out, digs her fingers into the stone, and drags herself an inch, a foot. Then she reaches with the other arm, drags herself another inch, another foot. Slowly, so they don’t notice.

She’s a dozen feet from the bow when a monster comes skittering over the top of the tower and screeches.

They stare at each other, the bow not far from Laura, and Laura not far from the monster. There aren’t many options. So Laura does what she thinks best.

She throws herself in the direction of the bow, and the monster scuttles towards her, screeching and throwing itself on top of her. Howling, she kicks, but can’t get the leverage to free herself.

So instead, she stretches her arm, fingers scrabbling at the arrow lying just – just! – out of her range.

‘No, no, no,’ she pants, and tries again to kick the monster off.

Her fingers brush it, closer, closer, and then she’s closing her fist around it and swinging. Her aim is not exact, but she manages to stab the creature in the eye, and it collapses atop her.

A limp weight, however heavy, is easier to move than one actively trying to avoid being bucked off. She wrenches the arrow free, banging her elbow on the stone beneath her and wipes it clean on her dress. Frank’s coat is a sweaty, bloody mess, but she won’t deliberately make it worse; she has to give it back to him soon.

Taking a moment to breathe, she studies the arrow, studies the handcrafted wear on the head, Clint’s workmanship as tangible as his fingers against the back of her hands, tracing across her nape as he stands at her side, watching her studying the arrow the way she’d studied them in the cottage in that brief half-hour before she curled up in his bed and drifted off to sleep. They were so – so – unique. No two of his arrows were the same; she supposes it’s because he makes them, and he’s not a blacksmith. All of her arrows are produced in the smithy, by the same men who make the swords for the boys, who make the guns.

‘Clint,’ she whispers. And then, ‘God help me.’

She nods to herself, and gets to her feet, dusting herself down with one hand, arrow clutched in the other. Turning back to get the bow, she sees Peggy still duelling Loki to rules she doesn’t understand. But it doesn’t matter; Clint’s hands are warm against hers, broader palms and rougher fingers curling over the back of her hands, moulding her fingers as she notches the arrow and straightens, twisting to draw and aim.

The string’s tight, tighter than hers, less give in the wood. It takes her two goes to get a grip she can even try to draw with. Her arms shake. Her shoulders ache. Her fingers are bleeding. Clint is warm against her back, fitting himself around her to help her. He believes in her, she’s sure. He believes that she can do this, that she’s capable.

So she takes another breath, deep and filling her lungs until they burn for the chill still in them, fixes her gaze, and draws.

 

* * *

 

It doesn't kill him, because Laura doesn't have that good an aim.

She wishes it would have, because that would have ended this here and now.

However, it does get him under the arm, in the weak spot of his armour, where there is just fabric and not plate metal, and he screeches. Whirling to find the origin of the arrow, snapping the shaft with one yank as he turns, he snarls and locks gazes with her.

‘You!’ he snarls.

Laura grins, tastes blood in her mouth. Her gaze flickers; Clint is circling, and his head tilts, studies her. Something warm settles in her belly, something she understands but cannot name and does not have time to study.

She _understands_.

‘Me,’ she replies, and shuffles back until she hits the battlements.

A beat of his wings, and Clint circles around, slow enough to not alert Loki, but quick enough that he’s going to reach her.

He never gets chance to catch her from her swan dive from the tower, because she never gets a chance to do it.

Loki is there before she can ease her feet back onto the battlement, hand tight around her throat and lifting her a solid foot from the floor. Black spots immediately pop behind her eyes, and she chokes on what was left of the breath she’d had in her lungs. Her fingers scrabble, but can’t get a grip against his armour, and she swings her feet, but her bare toes barely even connect, never mind break through whatever Fair armour he’s wearing. She doubts he can even feel her kicking him. The cold in his skin, the freeze of his palm is blistering against her skin, burning like the hottest fires, and she’s sure this is death.

Slowly, Loki is tightening his grip, and he extends his arm, drags her over the edge of the tower and shoves her feet away from the battlements when she tries, with what little coordination and consciousness she has left, to brace herself on the stone. Dangling three hundred feet above the ground, the fire and the ice searing her soles, she knows, she _knows_ that this is not a death she can come back from. Peggy will not be able to save her. Peggy is – is –

Where is Peggy?

Loki’s grip is tight enough that she can feel her bones creaking, the blood welling in her blocked jugular, the air trapped in her chest.

And then it starts to loosen.

 

* * *

 

Lightning splits the sky, crashing into the centre of the tower, and Loki’s grip tightens reflexively as the tower starts to crumble.

‘Brother! Stop this!’

Laura’s vision is mostly black now, flashes of colour in vague shapes existing for a half-second here and a half-second there. Everything sounds like it’s underwater, a muggy, faded sound, like her mother reading a fairy tale, or the exact timbre of Clint’s laugh. A flash of blue, a flash of gold, and then laughter, laughter she knows from her nightmares.

Perhaps she is dreaming. Perhaps she never woke from the enchanted sleep. Perhaps this is all a nightmare, and perhaps still is still ten, dozing in Bucky’s lap in the few brief periods where she isn’t wailing or staring at nothing. Perhaps none of this is real.

‘Fine, _brother_.’

And then air is rushing past her, and this is _real_.

 

* * *

 

Each of them makes a strangled noise; Laura is still atop the tower.

‘Oh, God,’ Bucky breathes, and Steve swallows thickly.

‘Move!’ he hollers, but for a few seconds, no one moves at all.

Then Lucky darts past them, tripping over his feet with how fast he’s running. Bucky is quick to take after him, rushing through the swarm of monsters to follow the Princess’ hound to the Queen’s Tower, billowing dust and lightning. There is something going on in there, something Bucky is not sure Laura is strong enough to battle, and he won’t let her face it alone.

 

* * *

 

 

The dragon sees the fire, and stretches its neck to inhale deeper. It can smell something soft on the air, something it knows, something it _loves_. Something familiar and known for – for –

It is sickly sweet and yet not sweet enough, something real and tangible and something it wants to know for the rest of the forever it has already known it.

Her name flutters across its subconscious like a prayer, like a lullaby sung by a mother it had never had, and yet it cannot hear it, cannot think the name, never mind say it at all; as much as it wants to, its tongue glues itself to the roof of its mouth.

And then, a flash of gold, so minute as to be nothing at all, but so bright, so enchanting that it stops dead in the air, wings beating once, twice, to keep itself aloft, and it stares. The gold is as sweet as the smell of her skin, of her heart, and it breathes her in, breathes in the love she sends to him as he stares at her staring at him.

The dragon’s mouth falls open, name half on its brimstone tongue, but there is little more than a growl to be found there, warping into a screech when one of the monsters, enormous and stinking of Fair magic, latches onto his belly, bites hard.

Distracted from the smell of his Love, he fights the monster off, and turns back again only when the Love bursts into a horizon-wide flash of gold, skin and hair blazing as she draws a bow twice her strength, arrow piercing the monster-man’s armour and making him screech in a way no man could screech. She staggers back to the battlements, and he understands.

He knows what to do. But before he can reach her, before he can catch her, lightning sends him careening back, blown away by the force of it colliding with the tower, and the tower falls apart before his barely-righted eyes.

People are hollering her name, screaming it. The ants are running to her, even as the tower continues to crumble, and it falls in line with the beat of his heart.

_Laura, Laura, Laura_.

_Love, love, love._

The dust explodes outwards with the force of the collapse, and he twists, dives.

 

* * *

 

The girl’s eyes are fire, shining like the sun as she draws the bow and takes a breath. Thor is proud of her for drawing arms against his brother; she is standing where he could not, where the Council is failing, and the Plain Ones are growing so strong in the wake of the disaster his kind are wreaking across their realm.

Thor watches her blazing, hot and golden, her Blessing shining from her heart out to her fingertips, to her toes and the ends of her hair. She looks a mess, covered in blood and her nightgown torn to her knees, hair tangled and skin blue with the cold still in her bones, black with the bruises blossoming like spring posies. But she has been awake for only minutes and she has already accomplished more than he has in the hours since his waking. Miss Foster had given him all the information she could, but Miss Foster could not see the realm as he could, could not see the world she was begging him to save.

He does not need to save it; the Princess has it under control.

But then she _makes_ the shot. She doesn’t just hit his brother, doesn’t just get his attention. She _hits_ him. She manages to sink an arrow in the one weak spot of his armour, and get deep enough to have him bleed.

If he does not interfere, Loki will kill her himself, and then –

And then –

His brother needs aid, needs to have some form of restraint put upon him to prevent this happening again, but were he to _kill_ her, to actually kill a Plain One with his own hands –

It does not bear thinking about.

He is awake, yes, but he is sloppy with inactivity, and he lands harder than he intended, crashing into the tower and it crumbles beneath them. The Princess will die because of his interference if he does nothing. So he lets his brother curse and whine about the arrow in his armpit, and focuses on catching the girl as she tumbles through the air, keeping her shielded from the brickwork and wood and everything inside the tower collapsing around and atop them as they plummet towards the ground. As soon as the movement has ceased, as soon as the tower is done collapsing, he lets the Princess down, still limp-limbed and cold to the touch, and turns his attention back to his brother.

 

* * *

 

Clint lands hard in the courtyard, biting the heads and shoulders from several monsters before they can approach, and he screeches at the tower as if it has personally offended him.

Bucky, scrambling through the rubble to try and find the princess, looks at him.

‘I know, buddy,’ he says, ‘I’m doing my best. This arm ain’t good for this shit, you know.’

But they needn’t worry about finding Laura, because the rubble shifts, and a Fair One stands over her, limp and blue and in a heap on the ground.

‘She is fine,’ he says, in a deep voice that sounds so barely human he might as well be the rumble of the very skies above them. ‘She will wake within the hour. My brother is – I will handle him. She needs to be kept warm. She will be fine.’

And like that, as though he was never there, the Fair One is gone.

Bucky looks at the dragon, and Clint looks at the human. They cock their heads, and Bucky creeps into the space to scoop Laura up and bring her to safety.

‘She’ll hate this,’ he says, jovial, and looks at Clint, who lowers his head and a front leg, giving Bucky space to climb onto his back. ‘She’ll hate missing all the action. She hates being a damsel in distress.’

Clint snorts, and a spark of fire catches on a brick, but doesn’t set it alight.

Bucky and Laura safely on his back, he beats his wings and takes them up and out of the wreckage, following the Sergeant’s directions to a safe location.

‘Laura will be safe here,’ he says, and stares at Clint’s eyes, blue as a summer’s day, and as clouded as a storm. ‘I’ll get her warm, and return to the fight. We gotta protect the kingdom.’

The dragon nods, and with a beat of its wings that would have blown Bucky off his feet had he not already been against a wall, the beast is in the air and sinking its fangs and claws into the monsters still filling the skies.

 

* * *

 

The battle rages for hours, it feels like. Barely, they cross each other’s paths, Sam and Natasha and Steve and Dugan and the rest of the boys, barely do they see each other in the fray, and when they do, they have little chance to exchange words of encouragement or advice. Above them, Clint screeches and claws his way through wave after wave of monster, and he sets fire to even more below him, burning them to ash with precision no one had expected.

Somewhere, the Fair Ones are fighting. The rain has put out most of the fire, and the lightning is providing the sole illumination now. The only consolation is the crowd of monsters is thinning.

It will be over soon.

 

* * *

 

Clint goes down in the woods, crashing hard and with a screech that rattles Steve’s bones. Standing there with a monster’s crown in one hand and the other clutching at his bayonet, he feels it.

He’s not sure what it –

No, no that’s a lie. He knows what it is. He knows.

He knows what Clint crash-landing in the woods means. He knows.

Fuck all.

 

* * *

 

The Fair Ones’ battle ends without calamity, without fanfare, without anything to signify the battle is over.

The thunder stops rumbling, the rain stops pelting them with enough force to bruise. The last monster falls, and silence reigns.

It’s over.

 

* * *

 

‘I am sorry,’ says the Fair One, the blond with armour and a cloak of the purest red silk, not even marred by smoke, let alone flame or blade.

He has the blue monster by the arms, something monstrous clamped over his mouth. There is nothing he can say or do.

‘My brother will be punished for his crimes against your people.’

Steve does not know why he’s being spoken to, and he says as much.

‘They are not my people,’ he says, and his gaze wanders across the ruins of the castle. ‘They are the Princess’.’

‘She will wake once we are gone. She will be safe from my brother’s influence now. It should never have come to this.’

It is not a conclusion, it is not closure, it is not even courtesy. But it’s all they have, and it’s all they’ll be given.

The Fair Ones are gone, and the silence is deafening.

‘I’ll go and get Laura,’ Bucky says, quiet, and Steve doesn’t say a word to him.

He watches the Queen’s Guard and the survivors of the battle make their way to him, clutching wounds and each other, exhausted and soaked to the bone. The battle is over, the war is seemingly won.

‘So, Captain,’ Dugan says, appearing at his side like he’d always been there. ‘Where do we start?’

‘Any sign of Barton?’

‘He’s in the woods!’ Wade hollers from atop the remnants of the Queen’s tower, ‘Laura wants to get there fast!’

Steve swallows thickly, and turns away.

‘I’ll tell her,’ he says.

 

* * *

 

‘Laura?’

She’s bleary at best, and slurs out Bucky’s name, clutches pathetically at his arms.

‘Buck?’ she asks.

‘Hello, Princess,’ he says, and brushes her hair back from her face. ‘Come on, come on, we gotta get you out of here.’

She lets him drag her up and out of the rubble, out into the castle’s courtyard, where he pats her down and looks at her wounds and deems her fit enough.

As soon as he’s done, Laura is whirling on her heel, fists planted on her hips.

'Where is Clint?' she demands. 'Take me to him.'

'Princess,' Bucky starts, but she steps into him.

‘Don’t,’ she snarls, ‘don’t you dare. James, take me to him.’

He nods silently, and takes her hand to steady her.

Steve catches up to them as they walk, and with him are the rest of the Queen’s Guard, minus Monty, who she’s told is in Bearwood with those who escaped the castle.

‘Laura,’ he says, grave-faced and she swallows.

‘Steve,’ she nods, and reaches for him.

They embrace, tight and stinking of sweat and blood, but he holds her close until she pulls away.

‘Barton’s in the woods,’ he says, ‘we will have to ride. The horses are shaken, but they’re fit to go.’

As they head to the stables, she sees Frank, helping the remaining castle guard to clear some of the wreckage. They're all avoiding him as much as they can, casting him wary looks as he hauls bricks and wood and bodies out of the way, piling them up in corners and for the most part ignoring them.

'Frank!' she calls, and the man turns, plods over with a limp. Every step with his left foot leaves a smear of blood, and he’s dragging it more than he is stepping on it.

The guards all stare, straighten, like they’re ready to jump on him as soon as he’s in arm’s reach of Laura. If she had the thought to spare for it, she might be touched.

'Ma'am,' Frank nods, standing in touching distance, but keeping his bloody knuckles at his sides.

She shrugs out of the coat and hands it back to him with one hand, touches his arm with the other.

'Go to Lower Town,' she says. 'I'll have your pardon written up and sent to Miss Page in the morning.'

Frank eyes her, and then extends half an arm. She takes the offered embrace, and tightens her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his jaw to whisper in his ear.

'Stay safe.'

'You'll know where to find me,' he nods.

 

* * *

 

It takes several minutes of hard riding to reach Clint, but Laura leaps off Duke's back and hits the ground running. Her dress is so tattered now that she hardly needs to lift it, only tripping once she reaches him, and that's only because her foot gets caught in the wet puddle of blood that's formed around him.

The dragon is heaving for breath, blood pooled beneath him and spraying with every cough. She's covered in barely two hacks of his lungs, and she wipes it from her face, drapes herself over his snout and watches his eyes.

The blue is barely blue now, a greyish storm and they watch her, out of focus. They’re still his eyes.

'He's dying,' Gabe says, because someone has to.

'Shut up,' Dugan says. 'Not a word.'

Jacques is twisting his hat and eventually turns away. He says something, quick and thick with salt.

Gabe nods and Jacques takes off.

'He's going back to castle, wants to check on the girls and start the clear up process.'

Laura wipes her face again, now wet with tears, and nods.

'Go with him,' she says. 'Annette is there. She'll want to know you're safe and well.'

Gabe stares at her.

'Gabriel,' she teases, but it falls flat. 'Don't tell me you didn't know she plans to make an honest man out of you.'

Clint makes a noise that could be a laugh, but it's a gargling, uncomfortably choked noise, and Laura strokes his snout when he shudders and the earth beneath her turns to mud, so wet with blood she feels herself sinking.

'Come on,' Steve says, and Laura turns grateful eyes to him. 'We'll go with him too. They'll need us to lead the military and round up the dead and injured. Let's leave them be.'

'Steve,' Bucky starts, but Steve gives him such a look.

'We got ours,' he says, quiet. 'Let her have this.'

Laura doesn't know what they got, and doesn't much care, because he's ordering the boys to move, and within half a minute, she's alone with Clint.

'Hello, honey,' she coos, smoothes her hand between his glazed, bleary eyes. 'I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner.'

He rumbles something, and she shushes him, tells him not to talk.

'You can't talk like this. Don't waste your energy.'

She ducks to kiss between his eyes, topples forward when her knees sink into the blood pool, and he rumbles like he's trying, again, to laugh, but it trails off into a whine.

She does her best to back away, but her knees are stuck, and she can only barely straighten, getting her face and her hands off him.

'I'm sorry, honey, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to fall.'

He whines, and lifts his head a little, pressing into her open palm like Lucky when he does wrong. She rubs her hands over the sore spot as best she can, and whispers nothings to him.

'What can I do?' she asks. 'How do I stop this?'

But what was there to do? Clint as a man was dead, that was undeniable. She'd watched him die, had seen the sceptre burst through his heart and out his back, ripping straight through him like one of Angie's knives through fresh dough. He'd been dead before Loki kicked him off the tower, and the dragon had - had - it had taken over, because it had had no choice. And it had fought to save her. Clint had lost against it but beaten its will. Beaten his Curse.

Oh.

She'd known in heart that he loved her, because it didn’t take a genius to work it out, but she hadn't known just how much he loved her.

'Oh,' she says, because she understands now.

Clint sighs and shudders, falls still. There's no disguising the way his chest isn't rising and falling any more, the lack of heat coming off his breath. Laura straightens, stares at him. He stares back, but he's not seeing her.

'No,' she breathes, 'no, no, this isn't fair. You can't do this to me. Don't leave me, Clint. Don't go. I love you, I love you so much, please! Don't leave me.'

Her throat is tight, too tight and she can't breathe, can't draw breath around the panic settling in her bones. She shakes him as best she can, runs her hand between his eyes the way she runs her hand over his hair.

'Clint,' she begs when minutes later there is still no response. 'Clint, please. You selfish bastard.'

A light rain begins to fall, but Laura barely notices, frozen to the bone with the grief of Clint's silence.

'Clint,' she breathes, and brushes her fingertips over one of the jagged bones jutting from his face, leans down to kiss between his eyes, her mouth rain-slick and blood-warm. 'I love you.'

'Laura!'

She looks up, finds Barney running to her.

'You!' she screeches, leaping to her feet, nails at the ready.

She's going to claw his face off - it won't fix it, it won't bring Clint back, but it'll assuage some of the guilt. It's Barney who kidnapped her, Barney who gave her to Loki, Barney who forced Clint to rescue her. Barney catches her wrists before she manages to sink her claws into his eyes, and holds them tight.

'Stop, stop,' he breathes, calm as anything. 'This won't help you.'

'It will,' she snarls. 'It'll help. There's nothing left! I love him, I love him, and it wasn't enough!'

'Laura, please listen to me. Go home. It'll hurt, it'll feel impossible, but you will overcome this. You will fall in love again.'

'I thought,' she hiccups, 'I thought he was my True Love. I thought - I was so sure.'

'There is life after True Love,' he murmurs, and tugs her into his arms. 'You're strong, Laura, so, so strong. You'll make it out the other side of this, I promise you.'

He's harder than Clint, the solid muscle of a man starved. He's colder too, icy to the core. But it's better than having no embrace at all, and she buries her face in her hands, weeps into his chest.

Barney hushes her, stroking her hair and playing with it in a way so similar to Clint that she chokes for the grief of it.

'Come on,' Barney says, and when Laura looks up, he's looking at his brother, dead and cold in the misty rain.

She can't bear to turn her face to see him.

'I'll take you home.'

Laura lets him hold her hand as he walks with her, and her knees are buckling by the time they reach the castle. The boys rush to greet her, and Natasha lunges for Barney, but Wade gets there first, fist drawn back and full weight angled into the punch. Even with her heart pounding in her ears and deafening her with her grief, she hears the crack of bone, and Natasha's laughter, vicious as venom.

Laura doesn't care what happens to him. She doesn't care what happens to her. Or to any of them.

She failed to break Clint's curse and that was it. He was dead. Gone. She hadn't loved him enough and hadn't loved him truly enough to break the curse. He'd died to save her life, and she couldn't save his in return. Doctor Ross had said that was what happened. She said that it was hard to break a curse, that one or the both of them might end up dead, but she'd been so sure.

That was it. Done. The end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a rain-soaked clearing, charred and bloody with a recent battle, Clint Barton's heart has not stopped beating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry this took so long to post guys! things have been really rough in my work and personal life lately, and it's put me on my ass to the tune of a sick note for stress and exhaustion lmao. i've been steadily plodding away at this, and i'm so far from satisfied with it but i've kept you waiting long enough!


	12. Epilogue: i

The months following the Battle of the Queen’s Tower, as it becomes known in newspapers and history books and posters spread from one street corner to the next in Lower Town and Lynne’s Brook and as far across the kingdom as the streets of Frankia, are hard. What’s left of the castle is near uninhabitable, and the rebuilding will take years. For now, House Harcourt has relocated to one of their summer palaces, a pretty little place a few day’s hard ride away from the smouldering remains of the castle, where the day-to-day work of the royals is carried out to the best of their abilities, but it is hard for them; the King has determined that Laura will succeed him, and has made movement to that effect.

But Laura is not in the summer palace, and is nowhere to be seen for several months. The summer fades into winter, and back into spring, and then a year has passed, a year of rebuilding the kingdom, and Laura has not set foot on royal property. The boys, for all they are sworn to serve the kingdom, have sworn loyalty over Louise’s grave to defend the Princess, and her privacy, so Captain Rogers will say, is part of their oath.

For all intents and purposes, Laura has abdicated in turn, but missives will be passed from the boys’ hands to the King’s, and Dean will look at his daughter’s hand and he will pass her laws and carry out her wishes as best he can, for Laura’s absence has the kingdom at its heart.

She is not in a position to rule, but she is not one to abandon those she loves, and she loves the kingdom like she loves no other, for the other she loved has gone.

A summer rain has the King’s Wood – soon to be the Queen’s Wood once more – smelling of wet leaves and blooming flowers, and Steve pulls his steed to a stop in a pretty little clearing, with a myriad of wildflowers and a pretty little cottage, thatch mossy and ivy around the door. He dismounts, ties the steed to a low-hanging branch, and pulls the stack of papers from the pouch on his saddle.

The windows of the cottage are shut, bolted and curtains drawn, the door firmly latched despite the heat, and he approaches with his head hung. Still, a year later, an air hangs around the place, something melancholy and bitter and sweet, too, sweet in a way he’s grown familiar with. Something loved but lost.

He raps the knocker twice, one, twice, and waits.

Laura looks no better than she had the last time he’d seen her, black-eyed and tangle-haired, still in all black with the sallow skin of one who doesn’t sleep. He smiles at her, and she smiles back, not reaching her eyes, and steps aside to let him in. He ducks through the door and rolls his shoulders. She’s changed the sheets of the bed at least, but there’s still crockery on the table, and stains not scrubbed from the floor.

‘Are those the new guild budgets?’ she asks, and Steve nods, stacks some plates with one hand and sets the papers down with the other.

‘They are,’ he says, and pulls out one of the chairs at the table, drops into it and ignores how it creaks under his weight.

It’s a sturdy chair; Barton made these things to last.

Laura sits more daintily in the other chair, and pulls the papers towards her.

‘How are they?’ she asks after a long stretch of silence. ‘My father and brother, the others. How is Jacqueline?’

The Falsworths’ had had a daughter in the year Laura had lived in the cottage, a pretty fiery-haired girl they’d named Jacqueline, and were, so Steve said, in talks of having a third, hoping it would be another boy to round the family off. Laura is yet to see the daughter, but she cannot imagine her to be anything less than perfect.

‘They’re all fine,’ Steve assures her, ‘Jacqueline has a summer cold, but Monty says that it’ll pass soon, when we get a bit of rain. Your father misses you, but he understands. Bucky’s starting to pine to visit you.’

‘I can’t see him,’ she says, immediately, the way she always does. ‘I can’t. Not after – Steve, it’s _my_ fault.’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ he snorts. ‘Buck knew better than to swing straight into a dragon’s mouth. Stark’s been improving the arm week-by-week, you’d never know it wasn’t a real arm unless you took the glove off.’

But Laura shakes her head and returns to silently going through the papers.

‘They aren’t having that much money, tell my father to not be ridiculous,’ she says once, and strikes through the proposed budget. ‘Not until they pass the law that allows women to practice medicine freely and without prejudice.’

Steve says nothing; it’s an age-old argument.

Papers examined, revised, and approved, Steve has no further reason to stay. He tries to talk to her, the way he always tries to talk to her, but Laura is tired. The nightmares that plague her now are not of magical origin and cannot be swept away by a draught. Not for lack of trying; Banner had mixed his strongest draught and Laura had cried it out of her system in an hour. They had not tried to give her another draught after that, and watched from afar as she choked her way through her grief.

* * *

The summer fades into autumn, and Laura makes a return to the summer palace.

It’s unannounced, and without fanfare. No one knows where she found the horse. Frank accompanies her on one side, in all black with a heavy blade and pistol on his belt, looking ready to right any who dare cross her. Wade is on her other side, red hood pulled deep over his head, and mask pulled high over his nose, slouched and relaxed and looking too carefree. She is tiny between them, a meek little girl facing a terrifying world alone for all the bodies around her.

The noise that erupts when it becomes apparent who has ridden to the gates is immense, and Laura shrinks away from it, horse steadied only by Frank grabbing onto the reins and keep the horse in place. She looks at him and he looks at her, and eventually she nods, allows him to keep the reins and lead them through the gate.

Bucky is the first to hold her, snatching her out of Frank’s grip as Frank lifts her from the side-saddle and down onto solid ground, and he holds her tight enough to make her bones creak, but she doesn’t make him let go, and doesn’t let go of his pelisse for some long minutes. Her sobs echo around the courtyard for most of the night.

It takes until the next spring for Laura to get back into the swing of it. She isn’t remotely fine, isn’t remotely okay, but she smiles with her eyes and her laughter becomes almost as common as it had before. As time passes, she accepts more and more responsibility, and when she is ready, the blond Fair One from the tower comes to speak with her, to explain what had happened.

‘We could not see you,’ he says, in his deep voice, sweet as a spring, and Laura smiles into her tea.

They’re sitting in the palace’s garden, overlooking a bubbling fountain, with flowers blooming metres high around them, under the shade of a pretty pink tree. It’s nice, and quiet, and private, and Laura has questions to ask, but no voice to ask them.

‘You’d disappeared. Captain Rogers says that you were in mourning, in a place important to you.’

‘The cottage I had lived in,’ she murmurs, for Laura has grown quiet in her twenty-first year, quiet in a way that makes her seem wise and serious, instead of lost and melancholy. ‘It was Blessed by my Fairy Godmother, many centuries ago. She has been the Fairy Godmother of the royal women of my kingdom for some time, and she Blessed the cottage to be visible only to the dear ones of Princess Faulkner.’

‘Then how were you to see it?’ the Fair One – he says his name is Thor, for some relation to the thunder he brought with him in the Battle – asks.

‘I am to understand, from what Peggy has said in the past year, that I am not – I am Laura Faulkner, after a fashion. I am not her, and she is not me, but there is a – a bond, a connection.’

‘Reincarnation,’ Thor nods, sagely, ‘I have heard of it, but never seen it among Plain Ones.’

‘It is how – it is how Clint found me,’ she murmurs, and looks at her cup, almost empty. ‘We had missed our chance, the first time around, and Fate had intervened to give us another chance. A chance that I – I did not utilise. I did not – I did not love him Truly enough to save him. He died, and I – after a fashion, he is free of your brother’s Curse now.’

Thor pats her knee, and she makes a noise like she’s about to cry, but she has no tears left.

They talk a while longer, and Thor explains to her what his brother had planned, what he had hoped to achieve by having Barton under the Curse for so long, but there are no words, no explanations, no reasons that can comfort her now. It is nothing new; Loki had revealed his plans, and the only comfort is that he is now gone from her life, and will not return, for he will be allowed no passage to their realm, and no longer will be unaccompanied in his day-to-day life. He will forever be under watch.

It is a small measure of comfort.

Clint did not have to die for that resolution, but Laura will accept it, because it is all she has.

* * *

 

Summer comes, and with it, Laura’s birthday. She had spent most of the past birthday down the far end of a bottle, and the kingdom had had little besides the promise of her continued existence to celebrate, and so the festivities are wearisome in their extravagance, exhausting in their wildness, and she tires looking at the flags they fly across the towns visible from the windows of her chamber.

She wakes the morning of her birthday to Angie bringing her a breakfast on a pretty carved tray she has never seen before. Clearing it of plates and bowls and glasses after the cook is gone, she stares at the carved roses, and she tears up. She has not cried for months, all of the salt gone from her eyes, but she feels them welling, feels the salt clinging to her throat, and she swallows thickly to down them, chasing the bitter taste with a swig of tea.

After a walk around the gardens with Lucky and Buck both, she asks the latter if he will take her to the archery range on the grounds later in the afternoon, when the festivities are too exhausting to continue.

‘I haven’t used a bow since – since that time on the tower,’ she says, ‘since I drew Clint’s bow. I would like to start again, I think.’

‘I found his bow,’ Bucky says, and reaches for her hand, turning it to look at her fingers, where scars still reside on the creases of her fingertips, cut into her skin from the string of Clint’s bow. ‘Nobody I could find was able to draw it even a little. And yet you managed it.’

 ‘Power of love, I suppose,’ she says, and tugs her hand free. ‘Shame it wasn’t enough.’

‘Shame,’ Bucky agrees, but he does not sound convinced.

They return to the palace and to the last of the gift-giving, as is tradition. Lords and ladies from across the kingdom are too pleased to see Laura back, to see their queen-to-be sitting atop a throne, and Laura recognises attempts to sway her into a marriage for what they are. She will rule alone; she has said as much a thousand times in the past months alone. She will let the Harcourt line die with her, and Monty will take her place, as she had written into her will a decade ago.

He’ll be a just king, and he will not have to worry for his True Love, for he already has her on his finger and in his heart, buried deep like his bones, like his organs.

Her belly aches; the scars always ache. But she ignores it, because she’s ignored it for a year, and it’s all she has to remember him by now, the marks he left carved into her flesh. Her fingertips and her belly and the gaping hole where her heart had sat, they are all she has left of him.

A noble from the far side of the kingdom tries to marry her to his son, and gives her the gift of diamonds and pearls, as though she doesn’t already have jewellery boxes full of the damn things. A year of living in peasant’s dresses and what was left in the dresser in the cottage, and she has lost her taste for the fine things, for the delicate, precious gemstones and embroidered dresses of the court. She has no cares for it now.

Give her one of Clint’s shirts and pair of sturdy boots, and she’d be happy. The shirts no longer smell of him, but she wears them to bed all the same, curls herself into them, tucks her knees into the hem to pretend like his arms are around her.

It’s better than nothing.

The noble moves on, and the queue is still out the door. Laura is too tired for this, but Steve waves the next forward, and a peculiar hush falls over the room. The last time a hooded figure presented themselves before the Princess, it was a Hag cursing her to die. As the air stagnates and stales as those present hold their breath, thunder floods Laura’s veins, spikes in her heart like a thousand bolts of lightning have pierced it so suddenly.

She sits straight in her throne, white knuckles gripping the arms tight, ready to propel herself in any direction as the figure reaches for its hood, pushes it back.

Before any of the Queen’s Guard can make a sound, before anyone who had eyes in their head two years ago, on the Princess’ twentieth birthday can even draw a breath, Laura is throwing herself off the dais and crashing into Barton’s arms, knocking him off his feet and flat on his back. For his part, he crushes her to him as tight as she holds him in turn, and they lie there on the floor, Laura weeping and Clint breathing her in.

The hush falls away into confused whispers, rising in volume until it becomes a crescendo of voices, of hollering.

‘Laura?’ Steve asks, and Laura lifts her head enough to look at the Captain.

‘It’s fine,’ she says, turning her gaze back to Clint. ‘It’s fine. All is well.’

Clint, his eyes storm-blue and skin sun-gold, smiles at her, and she cannot stop herself from kissing him, from cupping his face in both hands and fitting her mouth to his in the way she is sure it was meant to fit.

A spark ignites in the air, something long-known and long-forgotten, a spell that had been cast all those centuries ago alighting to the purest magic. Laura is flooded with a sense of peace, a sense of fulfilment, like coming home from a long, difficult ride, and she finds herself laughing against Clint’s mouth.

‘True Love’s kiss,’ he whispers, and kisses her again, and again, and a third time for good measure.

* * *

 

It takes some time for him to explain what had happened. It takes some time for Laura to leave his mouth alone long enough for him to explain what had happened.

‘Barney made a deal,’ Clint tells her, as her fingers trace patterns on the marred, beautiful skin of his chest, tracing the shape of the jagged scar on his heart, that she knows by feel repeats, much bigger and messier, on his back. ‘He made a deal with Zemo – he was a Baron, centuries ago – ‘

‘I know about the Zemo family,’ Laura says, because she doesn’t care about Zemo, not really.

‘Good, I hate the bastard. Hated them from long before this Curse bullshit,’ Clint says, and shudders as Laura’s fingers trace across his belly. ‘Either way, Barney made a deal with him. It wasn’t a Curse, but it might as well have been. Made it just after Faulkner died, and I got Cursed. Made it so that he could make a deal with Loki, to get Cursed to save me. An exchange, I guess. Barney’s soul instead of mine. It didn’t matter to Loki, in the end, who’s soul he got, he could turn anyone into his little war machine. But he didn’t know that Barney had the safeguard of his deal with Zemo. Took a long time to get the paperwork for it. Fair bureaucracy is almost as bad as ours.’

Laura laughs, a real, genuine laugh, the first since before Clint had seemed to die.

‘I thought you died,’ she says.

‘I did,’ he nods. ‘But then you kissed me, and it – it worked. It was True Love’s kiss, it was. But I was – everything was wrong. The Curse couldn’t break because of the bargain Barney had made, and I was humanly dead, so all it had to give me back was the dragon form. We had to wrangle my human form back from the Fair Ones.’

Laura laughs again, shakes her head. ‘What a palaver.’

‘What a palaver indeed,’ Clint laughs, ‘and reading the paperwork to sign it! Never again. I’ll never sign another paper as long as I live.’

‘You’ll sign our marriage certificate, though, won’t you?’

Clint looks at her, and Laura looks at him, and he laughs, rolls her onto her back to look at her with her hair splayed behind her head and the setting sun dancing across her skin.

‘Did you just propose to me?’ he asks, with a laugh.

‘I don’t know,’ she replies, grinning ear to ear. ‘Did you accept?’

And then, more seriously, with her fingertips tracing the crease of his smile, she says, ‘I’m not losing you again, Clint, I can’t. I thought – for a year, I was so sure you were lost, that you were dead, and I’d failed you. I couldn’t survive that again.’

‘You won’t lose me again,’ he says, turning into her hand to kiss her palm. ‘I promise, I’ll not leave your side.’

Laura smiles.

‘Good. Good, I'm glad to hear that, Prince Consort.’

Clint snorts, and ducks down to kiss her, both of their bellies filling with those same contented butterflies, their heart full of those same thousand lightning bolts.

True Love’s kiss, indeed.


	13. Epilogue: ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end.

Laura wakes on a sunny mid-morning in spring. Lucky is not at her feet, but Lucky hasn’t slept at her feet for some years now, and she’s grown to be okay with that, because she’s stopped sharing her bed with the dog to start sharing her bed with her husband instead. Her husband, she finds, is much nicer to share her bed with. He kicks, too, and he snores up a storm if he sleeps on his back, but he is less hairy (marginally) and smells better (though that’s up for debate), and he is nicer to kiss, because he kisses back, and kisses tend to lead to more.

She kind of likes more, now that she can _have_ more without having to worry about being gutted like a fish for it.

He’s curled against her back now, nose buried in her neck and hand pressed tight to the scars on her belly. Age has softened the scars, and she doesn’t feel quite so ashamed for him to see them any longer, though she still, sometimes, stares into the middle distance when he sees her naked. But the scar on his heart and out his back still provokes the same response in him, some ten years later.

‘Mm,’ he sighs against her neck, and fidgets.

His dick is hard against the back of her thigh, and she laughs, turns in his arms to wriggle close. It would be very easy to slip him in like that, and there have been many a morning where she does.

‘Good morning,’ she whispers. ‘I can’t hear the babies.’

‘I think Frank has them up and about,’ Clint whispers back, ‘Lila wants to do archery, and he’s happy to get Bucky to teach her.’

‘Of course she is,’ Laura snorts, ‘archery saved her daddy’s life.’

‘Her momma saved her daddy’s life,’ Clint snorts, and rubs their noses, aligns their mouths.

‘Mm, did she? I like the sound of that.’

‘Coop’s with Jane.’

‘Mm, good. He’ll be there all day. Lots of time for us.’

Clint laughs, and eases her onto her back.

‘Be careful,’ Laura whispers, like it’s a secret, ‘watch your weight.’

Clint pushes up onto his elbows, frowns at her.

‘Laura?’

She smiles, and cups his face with both hands.

‘Doctor Cho confirmed it,’ she whispers, ‘last night, when I went to see her before bed. I’m pregnant, Prince Consort.’

Clint’s eyes flash like starlight when he laughs, and they live happily ever after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are the end! It's been a ride and a riot to write, and thank you all so much for sticking with me throughout it! This is one of the first fics I've ever actually finished, and I'd like to thank spectralarchers and scarfloor for getting me through it when i doubted myself terribly and had some rough times in my personal life during the course of writing this. They've been absolutely amazing, almost as amazing as everyone who's commented and left kudos on this fic for me! I'll be taking a break from fic for a while, I think, to focus on original work, but I'm sure I'll be back with more Claura shenanigans soon!
> 
> Thank you, lovelies~!!!


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